


The Impossible Dream

by Leia1979



Series: Impossible [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leia1979/pseuds/Leia1979
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Rose and the metacrisis Doctor's wedding nears, a quick trip to visit Jack Harkness turns into a mission to keep their own timelines from unravelling and pits them against an enemy they thought they'd never see again. Follows "Golden Age of Impossible."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to part three of the Impossible series!
> 
> With the exception of the one-shot, I recommend reading these in order:  
> Getting Back to Impossible, Golden Age of Impossible, The Impossible Dream, and A Proper Goodbye for the End of Time (one-shot).
> 
> I own nothing save for some T-shirts and my Official Companion Guide from the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff.

The distinctive wheezing noise of a materialising TARDIS could hardly be heard over the pulsing rhythm of the darkened 51st century bar. Nor did any of the inhabitants seem to notice yet another set of floor-to-ceiling speakers just fade into existence in front of them. It could have been that the bar was dark, the only illumination provided by beams of multi-coloured laser lights on the walls, or it could have been that the hypervodka was so strong, none of the patrons really cared.

Inside the TARDIS, the noise of the bar was apparent from the moment they materialised. Rose thought something or someone was pounding on the ship's doors. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"Of course it is." The Doctor strode confidently past her to fling open the TARDIS doors, which unfortunately also let the painfully loud booming noise that passed for music inside. "I'm certain Jack is here somewhere."

"What?" Rose shouted over the din.

"I said I'm certain–" the Doctor began shouting. "Oh nevermind." He grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her out into the large dark room, dominated by a long U-shaped bar with patrons sat on either side who ranged from ordinary human to very, very alien.

It wasn't easy to identify people in the dark, at least not for Rose's human eyes, but she followed the Doctor as he wove through the moderate crowd. As they moved further down the bar, Rose's ears popped and suddenly the banging of the music was muted to a tolerable level.

"What was that?" She was finally able to talk to him again at a normal volume.

"Noise cancelling field. This is the quiet side of the bar."

It took a few more seconds for the pounding in Rose's head to subside. "Is that what they call music in the fifty-first century?" she asked with a grimace.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder at her. "Well, it's not what humans call music, if that helps restore your faith in your own species."

"It does, yeah. Oh there he is!" She tugged the Doctor up to the bar beside a tall, dark haired human man in a long navy coat. The Time Agent they knew as Jack Harkness seemed more focused on the empty shot glasses in front of him, arranged in a neat and orderly grid, than in the blonde woman sliding onto the stool next to him.

"Fancy meeting a bloke like you in a place like this," she said with a cheeky grin.

Jack's head snapped up when he recognised the voice. "Rose!" He pulled her into a hug that nearly lifted her off the barstool. "And the Doctor," he added, seeing the man in question give him a challenging look. "So what brings you two to this side of the galaxy?"

"Special delivery." Rose reached out her hand towards the Doctor, but Jack caught it and held it up to his face.

"And what's this?" he asked, examining the silver tone ring with a setting that swirled around the central deep blue stone. "Is that?" He tapped the stone with a finger and watched it turn from blue to ruby red. "Chameleon quartz. Don't see that too often. So who's the lucky guy?" he asked with a teasing grin as he released Rose's hand. He couldn't help cutting a brief glance to the Doctor. It was so easy to wind him up, at least where Rose was concerned.

"Looking for one final fling before the big day? I get that a lot." He said it deliberately just loudly enough so the Doctor could hear. Rose just slapped him on the shoulder before giving the Doctor's arm a reassuring squeeze.

The Doctor's narrowed dark gaze never wavered from Jack as he reached his arm down into the pocket of his brown pinstriped suit and removed a square ivory envelope. "We were going to invite you to the wedding, but I think I've changed my mind."

Rose snatched the envelope out of the Doctor's hand and passed it to Jack. "I know it shouldn't be any trouble for a Time Agent, but please make sure you note the date, time, and year."

"Not a Time Agent anymore," Jack commented bitterly as he carefully pried open the envelope. He missed the look exchanged between Rose and the Doctor. "John Smith. You really go by John Smith?" he asked with disbelief.

"Not for much longer," the Doctor replied enigmatically. "How long has it been since you last saw us?"

"You mean Hollywood?" Jack carefully tucked the invitation inside his coat, similar but not quite the same as their original Jack's military overcoat. "It seems like it was only a few months ago, but apparently it was almost two and a half years ago."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked cautiously, fairly certain she knew the answer.

"About a month ago I discovered two years of my memories were gone. I have no idea what happened or why. But I think I know who."

"The Time Agency?" Rose asked.

"Yes," Jack said slowly. "Do you know something?"

"The same thing happened to you in our universe."

"So what can you tell me?" Jack demanded.

Rose looked to the Doctor, who shook his head and replied, "Our Jack Harkness didn't know what happened, either. At least not as of the last time we saw him. He only said the Time Agency had stolen two years of his memories."

"Ret-conned," Rose said sadly.

Jack's head jerked in her direction. "How does a human from the twenty-first century know about ret-con?"

"I work for Torchwood, or well, I did. They don't use it anymore, but before it was taken over by the People's Republic, apparently it was used a lot."

"Torchwood," Jack said slowly. "Like the great-great-grandfather of the Time Agency?"

"Maybe," Rose said with a shrug. A thought occurred to her, and she grabbed the Doctor's hands and pressed lightly on his much stronger mental shields so he'd let her in.

" _We can help him, find out what happened,_ " she said silently. But the Doctor didn't even have to put his reply in words; Rose could feel his negative response. She turned pleading hazel eyes towards him and felt his resolve start to slip.

" _Just a look,"_ he acquiesced, and she could almost hear him sigh reluctantly in her head. _"If it's a fixed point, we leave_."

Rose gave him a tongue-in-teeth grin followed by a quick, hard kiss.

"Why do I feel like I missed something?" Jack drawled.

"I'm going to need your Vortex Manipulator," the Doctor announced with an outstretched hand. Jack quirked an eyebrow but did as he was asked, unfastening the brown leather strap and handing it over. Without another word, he shoved the Vortex Manipulator in his jacket pocket and tugged Rose in the direction of the TARDIS. A still-perplexed Jack followed closely behind.

The noise that passed for music once again started trying to pound its way painfully into Rose's skull as they passed through the deafening side of the bar. Fortunately the towering array of speakers wasn't far, and none of the patrons seemed to notice the three people disappear inside. With the TARDIS doors closed, the sound once again returned to a bearable level.

"So what's the plan?" Jack asked as the Doctor rounded the console to set the Vortex Manipulator next to the monitor. Rose stood just behind the Doctor, watching the monitor over his shoulder.

"I'm downloading the logs from your Vortex Manipulator. Maybe where you've been in the last two years will help us figure out what happened."

"But you need the Time Agency's encryption keys to get that data. I don't have access to that," Jack protested.

"You forget," the Doctor said smugly as he pointed to his temple. "Exceedingly clever."

"There isn't much here, but it looks like you made multiple trips to London from late 2005 through mid-2006," Rose said, reading the data on the monitor. "Doctor, that's around when we came here the first time."

Even without the benefit of telepathy, the Doctor would still have been able to feel the worry radiating from Rose. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer before addressing Jack. "Do you recall ever running into any Cybermen?"


	2. Chapter 2

Jack looked at the Doctor incredulously. Cybermen? Given the strange man's impossibly bigger-on-the-inside ship, he supposed nothing should surprise him. "2006," he said slowly, trying to muster what knowledge he had on the topic. "Is that the twenty-first century Cyber massacre? You mean you two were there?"

"It would have been a lot worse if we hadn't been," Rose replied. "The Doctor blew up their factory."

Jack slumped against the jumpseat. "Normally, I would say I'd know if I'd been there, but I can't say for certain."

The Doctor leaned over the console to study the monitor. "Given the events of that time and the fact that we were already there, I think we should start by finding Jack at the Time Agency in the fifty-first century. Here," he pointed to a line of data on the screen. "After he returned from his first trip to 2006."

"But Doc, you're not going to just waltz into the Time Agency, are you? At best, they'll lock you up before you get two feet out of the TARDIS."

"And the psychic paper won't work any better there than at Torchwood," Rose added. "So how do we get in?"

"I think," Jack said slowly, "with the right supplies and a little help, I can get you in. I had to learn how to forge Time Agency ID chips as part of my own investigation. You're gonna need a guide, though."

"No," the Doctor replied immediately. "That involves crossing your own timeline. You of all people should know what kind of risk that entails."

Jack opened his mouth to argue but closed it again at the Doctor's resolute expression. "Fine," he huffed. "But at least let me help you with the ID chips. And strategy."

The Doctor visibly relaxed. "Whatever you need, we can get it. Most likely," he hedged. "I suppose you should tell me what you need first."

Jack began to list off supplies, and other than a handful of familiar words, Rose really didn't understand any of it. She tried to stifle a yawn whilst the two men were technobabbling, and she curled up on the now-vacant beige jumpseat. She thought it would be rude to just leave but a book to read or something to do would have been nice.

"Rose, we're not boring you, are we?" the Doctor asked in a teasing tone.

"No, just a bit tired." This time she was less successful at hiding her yawn. "But I want to help if I can."

He grabbed her hands and pulled her up from the jumpseat. "The best thing you can do right now is get some rest while Jack and I build the ID chips. You'll want to be bright eyed and bushy tailed to infiltrate the Time Agency."

"Are you sure?"

He could feel Rose's doubt and desire to help warring with her exhaustion. "Absolutely." He bent down to kiss her lightly, a little self-conscious with Jack standing right behind him. "But if you see K9, send him out, will you?"

Rose nodded. "Good night, Doctor." She stepped backwards keeping her hand in his as long as possible before it fell away. "Good night, Jack!" she called with a little wave before disappearing down the corridor.

The Doctor led Jack to a storage cupboard just off the main hallway and pulled black-framed glasses from his jacket pocket before opening the door. The small space was jam-packed with a variety of items, many of which even Jack couldn't identify.

"Planning to start your own junkyard?" Jack quipped.

The Doctor looked mildly offended. "There are centuries of collected spare parts in here. You never know what you might need."

"Centuries?" Jack asked. "Exactly how old are you?"

"Nine hundred and six," the Doctor stated simply as he began sorting through a crate of various small items. Some went into his vast pockets and others were tossed aside. "I think."

Jack stifled a cough. "Nine hundred and… How old's Rose?"

"Twenty-six...ish. It's all gotten a bit timey-wimey."

Jack's expression managed to be both sceptical and salacious. "And she was how old when you met?"

"Nineteen." The Doctor's voice was muffled by the cubby he was crouched in. "Does this look like a neutrino capacitor to you?"

Jack took the tiny proffered item and studied it. "Yes, it does. And the wedding is soon?"

"About three weeks from the last time we were in London." The Doctor stood up and shoved his hands in trouser pockets now filled with miscellaneous spare parts. "Rose's mum is dictating most of it." The Doctor bounced past Jack back into the console room and started dumping parts onto a well-lit work table that Jack could swear hadn't been there before. The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver and started assembling parts together with a thoughtful expression.

"I miss tinkering," he said wistfully, giving Jack a brief glance over the top of his glasses before going back to sonic-welding parts together. "I haven't done nearly enough tinkering lately. Sometimes when Rose is asleep, but Jackie keeps insisting on all this wedding stuff. Flowers and programs and cake. Well, I can't say I didn't like the cake part. Six different kinds of cake we tried, including the second-best banana cake I've ever had, but the rest of it..."

"Doctor," Jack interrupted carefully. He had a burning question but didn't want to vex the man currently trying to help him, so he tried to be more tactful than normal. "Rose isn't…I mean with the wedding and the tiredness and all that."

"Isn't what?" The Doctor didn't bother to look up from his project. Jack wondered if he should help, but the Doctor seemed perfectly happy building the chip on his own. Probably adding his own flair to the design, too, if he knew the Doctor.

"Is she…" Dammit, he was just going to have to say it and hope he didn't offend the Doctor. "Is Rose pregnant?"

"What?" the Doctor squeaked, fumbling the sonic screwdriver and nearly dropping it. "No. I mean, I don't think so. I know my senses aren't quite what they used to be, but I think I'd notice...that. I'm not one hundred percent certain that's even possible, and I have absolutely no idea why I'm telling you any of this."

"Sorry," Jack said quickly. "I just thought that's why people got married in that time period."

The bright ring of metal on metal pulled Jack's attention away from his apology. He turned to see a boxy robot dog rolling towards them. The dog's red eyes could have looked menacing if it weren't for the tiny satellite dish ears waving back and forth atop its head.

"Master," the dog said in a high metallic voice. "Mistress Rose said you require my assistance."

"K9," the Doctor greeted cheerily and with a hint of relief. "Just in time. I need your help programming these ID chips."

"Certainly," K9 replied.

Jack decided it was in his best interest to keep his mouth shut for awhile as the Doctor and his canine companion made the chips to his specifications. Eventually he started to wander around the TARDIS console room out of boredom. The console itself, topped by the blue-green lit column, was a mass of controls piled together. Some of them were familiar to Jack, but others made no sense at all, and of course nothing was labelled.

It was probably an hour later when the Doctor gave a brief shout of triumph. "Molto bene!" he cried, holding up the two small completed chips briefly before shoving them in his pocket and bounding over to the console. "And now to return you to where we found you."

"You're sure you don't want me along to help out?" Jack asked, eager for more than returning to his collection of empty shotglasses.

"No no no, can't risk you running into yourself. One Jack Harkness is really more than enough. In fact," he paused as the TARDIS shuddered slightly, "here we are. If all goes well, we'll be seeing you again soon. Well, I mean this you, although I suspect we'll be seeing past you even sooner."

Jack considered protesting, but the Doctor practically chased him down the ramp and out the door. As soon as he looked back, the TARDIS door shut in his face, and the wheezing noise of the ship dematerialising could barely be heard over the pounding music of the bar.


	3. Chapter 3

"Are we heading for the Time Agency now?" Rose asked from her position at the TARDIS console. She'd been surprised to find Jack already gone when she woke up, but she'd also travelled with the Doctor long enough to know why he couldn't stay for this part.

"Yes," the Doctor replied, not pausing as he jumped from one section of the console to another. "But we'll park the TARDIS a bit outside. I don't particularly want the Time Agency getting their meddlesome hands on her."

A jolt that nearly knocked Rose to the floor indicated their landing, and she followed the Doctor down the ramp towards the door. He reached down into the pocket of his blue suit with the burgundy pinstripes and pulled out a shiny square object the size of a postage stamp.

"Keep this on you at all times," he said seriously, pressing the chip into Rose's hand. "This is your ID—should get you into most parts of the Time Agency."

Rose nodded and slid the item into the pocket of her black trousers. She hoped Time Agents dressed a bit like Torchwood Agents, because that's what the outfit provided by the TARDIS reminded her of. Her colour-changing engagement ring hung safely out of sight under her shirt on the same chain that held her TARDIS key.

She caught the barest hint of a high-pitched wail coming from outside the TARDIS doors. "Doctor, is that an alarm?"

"I think we missed the landing slightly." His expression turned grim, and he grabbed her arm. "Rose, I want you to stay with the TARDIS."

"Wait," she demanded, going up on her toes a bit to better look him in the eye. "You mean you're still gonna go out there? Why not just move the TARDIS?"

"Because we'll never make it inside the Time Agency now. They'll be on alert."

"They'll have guns, Doctor, they'll lock you away." Rose was trying to keep the panic out of her voice, but the entire situation was feeling entirely too familiar.

"Well, that's what I have you for," the Doctor said with a wink. Rose still wasn't comfortable with his non-plan, but before she could voice her concern, he pulled her close for a brief kiss. By the time Rose had opened her eyes again, he was halfway through the door.

The fleeting glimpse she caught of the agents surrounding the TARDIS was both what she expected and feared. A number of navy and black uniform-clad agents had small but deadly blasters drawn and pointed at the TARDIS. Rose ran to the monitor on the console, and without asking, the screen flared to life to show the scene outside the doors. The Doctor was being led away by two agents, each keeping a firm grip on his upper arms. Another four kept their weapons at the ready.

Rose's fingers dug into the edge of the console as she watched the monitor until the Doctor and the Time Agents were out of sight. She watched for another five minutes that felt more like an hour to make sure the coast was clear. After a quick check to ensure her TARDIS key was still in its place around her neck, she slowly opened the door and slipped through.

Looking back, she was surprised to see the TARDIS looked like a spacecraft. The young time ship, with her functioning chameleon circuit, tended to disguise herself as bland, overlooked items such as a filing cabinet or phone booth. The ship, however, was bronze and sleek, with a pointed nose facing upward. It was no bigger than the police box and looked like it wasn't meant to hold more than a single pilot. Maybe that's why the agents thought it was safe to leave the room.

Sending silent thanks to the TARDIS for her wise choice of form, Rose ventured through the room that was eerily reminiscent of the storage bays of Torchwood. Alien artefacts lined the walls and formed low aisles in the cavernous space. It was thankfully devoid of life forms, as far as Rose could tell.

She picked up the pace to reach the sliding doors she assumed were the room's exit. She stepped up to the centre seam of the looming dark red doors, but nothing happened. She looked around for a button or lever and noticed a black square set flush in the white wall beside the door, like a sleeker version of the badge readers found throughout Torchwood. Rose reached into her trouser pocket for the ID chip and held it up to the dark square. The doors immediately slid open with a barely audible hiss.

"Three thousand years in the future, and you still have to swipe your pass card," Rose muttered to herself. She glanced back over her shoulder to see the door she'd come through was marked Storage 4736 and hoped part of that designation was the floor number. If there were 4,735 other storage bays here, she might never find the Doctor.

Further down the hallway was a set of four silver doors that she was almost certain were lifts. The wall was marked with another glossy black square, so Rose held her chip up next to it. A soft chime preceded the set of doors to her left opening. Stepping inside the fortunately empty lift, she noticed a distinct lack of buttons or any other kind of control.

_Okay_ , she thought. _Maybe voice control. But where would the Doctor be?_ "Is there a prison level?" Rose asked aloud. The lift didn't reply and the doors remained open. _What else could it be called?_ "Detention level?"

With another chime the lift doors slid closed, and the floor dropped out from under her. Just seconds later, her knees nearly buckled with the force of sudden deceleration, and she thought her stomach might have relocated to her feet. She stepped unsteadily out of the lift and leant against the wall for support.

"If you think the lifts here are bad, you should try a Vortex Manipulator."

Rose pushed off the wall and whirled around a bit less smoothly than normal. She let out an audible sigh of relief to see Jack Harkness behind her wearing the same navy and black uniform as the other agents she'd seen.

"What are you doing here?" she asked quietly.

Jack's usual cocky grin melted into concern. "Are you feeling okay, Rosie? I work here. Remember?"

_Of course he does,_ she berated herself. She had no idea why she'd assumed he was the Jack she'd just seen the previous day. The uniform was a dead giveaway.

"Caught something that looked suspiciously like the TARDIS' energy signature coming from the storage bay," Jack added. "So what brings you to the Time Agency? Don't tell me you came all this way to see little old me."

"Well, actually, yes," Rose answered.

Jack seemed pleased by this, his blue eyes sparkling. "It's about time. But where's the Doctor? Or are the two of you fighting and you're here to make him jealous. Because I would be more than happy to help with that."

"Oh he's here," Rose said as she lightly pushed Jack away. "In fact, I'm pretty sure he's on the detention level somewhere."

"Of course he is," Jack said with a roll of his eyes. He held up the brown leather-wrapped Vortex Manipulator on his wrist and tapped something into its tiny computer. "Last person brought in is up here and to the left."

Rose followed as Jack led the way, finally stopping in front of a numbered door with yet another of those black ID readers. He waved his right hand in front of the reader, and the door slid open to reveal the Doctor with his sonic screwdriver at the ready.

Jack scoffed. "Come on, Doc, what are you gonna do with that, put up some shelves?"

The Doctor ignored his jab and pulled Rose into a tight hug that she returned enthusiastically.

"Why don't we go somewhere that doesn't have holding cells where we can catch up?" Rose suggested once the Doctor was no longer squeezing the air from her lungs.

"There are private comm booths a few levels up," Jack offered.

"I'd prefer the TARDIS," the Doctor countered. "Privacy in the Time Agency is a bit flexible for my taste."

Rose sighed. "I'm not sure I've recovered yet from my last trip in the lift."


	4. Chapter 4

None of the few agents they passed on the way back to the TARDIS challenged Jack or even seemed to think anything was out of the ordinary. Everything appeared to be business as usual at the Time Agency. Rose, however, watched it all warily, expecting alarms to sound any moment.

She had to hold back a smile at some of the looks Jack received from his fellow agents, though. He seemed to be quite popular with both men and women, which didn't really surprise her given all the stories of debauchery the other Jack used to tell her. The Doctor, back when he was all ears and leather, would make derisive comments about 51st century morality, and it only encouraged Jack to tell even more outrageous stories.

They found Storage 4736 again easily enough, and the room was thankfully vacant. However, the Doctor couldn't resist being distracted by some of the collected objects in the massive room on the way. Rose kept tugging him onwards every so often, but it took nearly as long to cross the room as it did to reach it from the detention level.

"Clever girl," the Doctor commented as they neared the bronze-coloured spacecraft that was actually the TARDIS in disguise. "Time agents wouldn't expect more than one person to come out of a Ventraxian planet hopper." With a snap of his fingers the ship's cockpit opened to reveal the TARDIS console room.

"Never did explain how this place is bigger on the inside," Jack muttered as he stopped at the top of the ramp to marvel at the pinkish-gold coral struts surrounding the hexagonal console. The large central column glowed a bright green-blue, and lights set in recessed circles covering the walls cast bright light across the room.

"If you think this is impressive, you should see the pool," Rose said with a grin. "Or the library. Did you know I found a room with a garden inside the other day?" She addressed this to the Doctor.

"Must be new. The TARDIS is still growing, after all."

"Growing?" Jack asked, looking like he'd misheard. "Are you saying the ship is alive?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor replied proudly. "Some forty-two years ago—for her, not for us—she could fit right in the palm of my hand. Now she's a proper transdimensional time ship."

Jack paused to take in his answer, started to ask a follow-up question, and then shut his mouth, thinking he'd only go further down the rabbit hole. "So since this doesn't appear to be a social call, what brings you two to the Time Agency?"

"London, Earth, 2006," the Doctor responded, deliberately providing a brief, vague answer. Jack, however, seized on the topic.

"You've seen it, too!"

"Well," the Doctor hesitated, "we wanted to know what you thought about it."

"The technology is definitely from the future—their future, my present." Jack leaned in closer, like he was afraid someone might overhear even though it was only him, the Doctor, and Rose in the TARDIS. "In fact, though I can't prove it yet, I think the cyber technology came from someone within the Time Agency."

"Cyber?" Rose asked. "Like Cybermen?"

"I knew Lumic's technology was too advanced, parallel world or not," the Doctor said aloud, more to himself than the others. "The earpods are part of it, too, aren't they."

Jack nodded. "They were designed by our R&D department to enable telepathic communication between agents, but they didn't work like they were supposed to. Instead of harmless direct communication, we discovered the hard way that with a little modification, they were capable of mind control. It was deemed too dangerous and the project was scrapped, so imagine my surprise to find the same technology on Earth three thousand years in the past."

"But why would someone do that?" Rose asked. "Wouldn't they be risking an enormous paradox?"

"Possibly," the Doctor said slowly. "Though not if they're not human."

"There's more," Jack added. "It looks like someone's trying to open a portal into the Void. I'm not sure how that's even possible."

"When?" Rose asked cautiously.

Jack glanced at the readout on his Vortex Manipulator. "May 2006."

"Not me, then," she said under her breath.

"What?" Jack asked sharply.

"Nothing."

Jack looked at Rose expectantly, but it was clear she wasn't going to elaborate. "So can I interest you two in a mystery? Or just the pleasure of my company?" Jack asked suggestively.

The Doctor quickly grabbed Rose's hand. " _We have to go with him to keep him from changing anything,"_ his voice sounded clearly in her head. Rose didn't respond but looked at him questioningly. " _The creation of the Cybermen, their journey through the Void. Torchwood. It all has to happen or else we won't end up here. I won't even exist. I'm so sorry, Rose."_

 _"_ What?" Rose exclaimed aloud, being less practiced with telepathic communication and frankly astounded by what he was saying. " _You mean we have to stop him?"_

"Why do I feel like I missed something?" Jack drawled.

"We'll help," the Doctor said without preamble. "We'll meet you there. And by there, I mean Torchwood, London, Earth, 2006."

"Why can't we all go in the TARDIS?" Jack asked.

"Got to make a quick stop first to see Rose's mum," the Doctor lied. "I wouldn't want to subject you to that. Not entirely sure I'd want to subject Jackie to you, either."

Rose and Jack both eyed the Doctor with near-identical expressions, neither quite certain if they ought to be offended. The Doctor, however, was oblivious to both as he hustled Jack out of the TARDIS with hands on his shoulders.

"All right, all right," Jack said in defeat. "May 13th, 2006. Don't be late." The door closed behind him and the Doctor leaned against it.

"What was that about?" Rose demanded.

"If he comes with us, we won't have logs from his Vortex Manipulator."

Rose stepped closer to him. "It's not just that. Jack thinks the Time Agency is responsible for the Cybermen. Millions of people died in those Cyber factories, Doctor."

"I know," he said softly, pulling Rose into his arms. "I wish we could save them, but it's a fixed point. If we stopped Lumic earlier, I could save them, and I wouldn't have to lose you to the parallel world, but I have no idea what destruction that could cause. Crossing one's own timeline is never a good idea. Well, almost never."

"But if that happened, I wouldn't have you—this you—either," she whispered into his shoulder as she squeezed just a little tighter.

"Not to mention the massive paradox that would create," the Doctor said brightly, his mood shifting abruptly as he pulled back from Rose. "We'll go with Jack, keep an eye on things, and keep him from accidentally destroying the planet."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay–I was travelling last week and had the worst wifi ever. But I got to see David Tennant in Richard II, which was amazing! And now, on with our story.

 

The year 2006 A.D. was a dark time for the version of Earth the Doctor had nicknamed "Pete's World." More than five million people had been cyberised between February and April of that year, and still more had died fighting the Cybermen. Underground resistance groups like the Preachers worked non-stop to disseminate the code that disabled the emotional inhibitor chips built into every Cyberman, making the human brains within realise the mechanical horrors they'd become. But the process of shutting down the dozens of factories around the world was slow-going.

Thousands of Cybermen had been locked inside deactivated factories leading to widespread disagreement among the human race. Some argued the Cybermen were living beings—the former families and friends of the survivors—and should be rehabilitated. Others sought the destruction of the Cybermen, insisting it was a mercy to end their existence, the people they once were now long-dead. The entire planet was tense with conflict.

Britain's contingent of Cybermen had largely been destroyed thanks to the Doctor, Rose, Mickey, and the Preachers, but the nation was also going through a drastic transformation. Cybus Industries no longer controlled the corrupt government, and the newly-elected President had declared the formation of the People's Republic of Great Britain, bringing an end to the curfews and martial law rampant under the previous regime. Life in post-Cybermassacre Britain was slowly improving.

The TARDIS materialised in a narrow alley amid the modern buildings of London's former docklands not far from the glass pyramid-topped skyscraper known as Torchwood Tower. The sleek concrete building that formed one wall of the alley had once been smooth but was now crumbling and covered with scorch marks, and debris littered the pavement. The entire alley was cast in shadow thanks to the waning late-afternoon sunlight.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS followed closely by Rose, still in her navy and black Time Agent uniform. He stooped down to pick up part of a discarded newspaper near his feet. "The Evening Standard," he announced, waving the black and white page in front of Rose's face. "Nice to see some things never change."

"Oi, look at this," Rose cried, grabbing the newspaper from his hands and straightening it. She turned it right side up to show the Doctor the two-inch high headline: JONES WINS IN LANDSLIDE. "Harriet Jones's just been elected president."

The Doctor pulled a face, but Rose gave him a light thwack with the paper. "She made some mistakes, but she was trying to do what she thought was right. Besides, this one's been all right. Elected to a second term in 2010."

"Helps that you have a Torchwood that's marginally less...evil."

"Not right now," Rose countered. "Dad, Mickey, and Jake won't take over for a few months yet from what they told me. After the Cybermen enter the Void."

"Right, yes, of course," the Doctor rambled. "That might make things just a little bit more difficult. Well, I suppose we ought to go find Captain Jack before he manages to erase us from existence."

Rose raised a sceptical eyebrow but held her hand out to the Doctor. He laced his fingers with hers and they ran, leaving behind a battered-looking red phone booth standing guard in the deserted alley.

Finding Jack, or more accurately, his Vortex Manipulator, was easy enough with the sonic screwdriver. The Time Agent leaned casually against the wall near an emergency exit and gave a lazy salute when he saw them.

"Oh, don't salute," the Doctor muttered out of habit. He ran the sonic along the edges of the door, changed the setting, and repeated the action. With a sharp kick from his dark red Converse-shod foot, the door rebounded and swung towards them to reveal a narrow stairwell that led both up and down from the ground floor.

"Up," Jack pronounced with a glance at his Vortex Manipulator. He bounded up the stairs without a look back, navy coat billowing out behind him.

"I still miss my coat," the Doctor whinged before taking Rose's hand and starting up the staircase. They eventually caught up to Jack and then continued up and up and up.

"When people talk about getting in shape before their wedding," Rose panted, slightly out of breath from the climb, "I don't think this is what they meant. Blimey, must not be doing as much running as we used to."

"I'm not sure how you do this with only one heart," the Doctor gasped in reply, his usually gravity-defying hair starting to droop slightly.

"But you've only got one heart."

The Doctor looked at her wide-eyed. "I know! I'm not entirely sure how I'm still standing."

"If you two are done gossiping," Jack interrupted. "We're here. No life signs present, so we should be good."

"Right," Rose said after taking a deep breath. "I'm the most familiar with this building, so I guess I'd better go first." She pushed the door open, took two steps through, and froze so abruptly the Doctor nearly ran into her. He looked over her shoulder at the expansive, high-ceilinged room ahead of them. The room was largely empty, with unadorned white walls and two large brass levers on either side. Four equally white desks, each with a computer workstation, stood between them and the levers on the left. A brightly-lit glass-walled office was to their right. The Doctor didn't need to feel Rose's distress to know where they were or why she had stopped. He wrapped his arms around Rose's waist and held her close.

"I didn't pay attention to what level this was," she said softly, unable to take her eyes off of that blank wall at the far end of the room. In over four years of working for Torchwood, she'd set foot in that room only twice, and in her present day, the room was different—larger and filled with additional workspaces and storage. But this looked almost exactly like it did the day she was separated from the Doctor.

She put her hands on top of the Doctor's, still wrapped at her waist, and took comfort in his reassuring presence, consciously reminding herself that he was here with her. It was times like this that she missed being able to feel his emotions. After their run-in with the telepathic Vidinians nearly a year ago, the Doctor determined to strengthen his mental shielding, and she rarely got glimpses of his feelings anymore unless he deliberately let her in.

"What's wrong?" Jack asked from behind them.

Rose tried to shake off her anxiety and focus on the task at hand. Although whether the task was stopping Jack or Torchwood, she wasn't quite sure. "Nothing," she finally replied. "What are we looking for?"

"Anything that tells us why they're opening a passage into the Void, and how," Jack replied, moving towards the nearest desk and its computer. "Doctor, come take a look at this."

The Doctor pulled out his glasses and slid them on before leaning over next to Jack to peer at the screen. "This isn't right," he exclaimed.

The genuine surprise in his tone worried Rose. "What isn't?"

"The breach. It should have been a one-way passage from this side. Cybermen from this world went into the Void. The opposite was true on our world—the Cybermen and Daleks came out of the Void until I reversed it. But this—" he looked from Rose back to the computer screen to confirm "—this breach goes both ways."

"Both ways," Rose repeated. "You mean something's coming through the breach...to here? But that's not what happened."

The Doctor removed his glasses slowly; he looked pensive. "Time can be rewritten."

"Hang on," Jack exclaimed. "What are you talking about?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Aren't they teaching you anything at the Time Agency?"

"Not that," Jack said dismissively. "About what's supposed to happen. I told you someone is messing with the timeline."

The Doctor let out a small sigh. "Rose and I lived through this. Not specifically _this_ , but the consequences of these events in our own universe. If those events don't unfold in the same way, our very existence in this universe will likely become a massive paradox."

Seeing his reaction, Rose placed a consoling hand on Jack's arm. "When you first told us about this, we thought you were describing everything that was supposed to happen, horrible as it was."

"So you two came along to make sure I didn't break something?" Jack bit out angrily.

"We came with you to help," Rose said placatingly. "We barely made it out of here alive last time."

"And it's a good thing we came here, because something is very wrong."

"Doctor!" Rose hissed.

He looked at her with an innocent expression. "What?"

The sound of slow, loud clapping echoed through the room followed by the clack of heels on the hard white floor. A woman in a fitted black skirt suit and black patent heels walked slowly into the room. Silver earpods were barely visible beneath her dark blonde shoulder-length hair.

"Oh, well done, well done," she proclaimed, letting her hands fall to her sides.

The Doctor, Rose, and Jack stood shoulder to shoulder with their eyes glued to the strange woman, utterly confused by her behaviour.

"Yvonne Hartman," the Doctor announced, recognising the late director of Torchwood from their home universe.

The woman raised an eyebrow, obviously caught off-guard. "You have me at a disadvantage." Her green eyes went glassy, and she abruptly turned away from the intruders and began to walk at a measured pace towards the farthest lever.

Another woman, petite with black hair pulled back in a tight bun and earpods identical to Yvonne's entered the room. Without a single glance in their direction, she walked straight to the second lever.

"Is that Martha?" Rose whispered.

"I don't think so," the Doctor whispered back, not taking his eyes off either woman as they began to push the levers upright. "She had a cousin who worked in Torchwood Tower in our universe."

The white wall at the end of the room began to glow as if lit by high-powered spotlights and then started to ripple. The Doctor finally turned away to monitor the computer, glancing rapidly between the two.

"Online," a disembodied voice announced.

"What's going on?" Rose asked anxiously, gripping the desk hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

"Something's coming through the breach," the Doctor announced. Jack unholstered his laser pistol and pointed it towards the wall, keeping a one-handed grip on the pistol to shade his eyes from the glowing wall with the other. The ripples in the wall began to coalesce and smooth out into a dome protruding towards them. Slowly the dome grew in size and began to darken from white to bronze.

"I'm not getting any readings on–" the Doctor stopped abruptly as his eyes flicked from the computer screen back to the wall. "Rose, Jack, the levers! Shut it down. Now!"


	6. Chapter 6

At the Doctor's shout, both Rose and Jack immediately leapt into action, with Jack's longer stride carrying him across the room to pull Yvonne away from her lever. She was back up as soon as Jack tried to grab the lever, and he shoved her away again.

Rose wasn't having much more luck with the woman who looked like Martha, either. She may have been petite, but she was surprisingly strong. Rose was hesitant to hurt her, but suddenly the woman slumped to the floor. She saw Jack across the room with his pistol pointed in her direction and his other hand on the lever. Her first instinct was to check on the other woman, but she forced her attention to the lever instead, grabbing it and pulling it down to close the breach. The lever resisted but eventually snapped into place. The wall began to ripple violently as the bronze dome turned white again and began to recede. After several tense seconds, the dome was gone and the wall was once again smooth and unbroken.

Rose knelt down beside the woman on the ground and felt for a pulse. Relief poured through her when she found it steady. Jack must have only stunned her.

"What was that?" Rose demanded, looking at the Doctor who was still hunched over the computer console.

"I think it was the Void ship," he answered slowly.

"You mean the Daleks?"

"Hang on, what's a Dalek?" Jack asked. "And should we maybe do something about these two?" He gestured towards the unconscious women.

Rose grabbed a mouse from one of the desks and yanked the cable from the USB port. She took the cord and wrapped it around the wrists of the woman who looked an awful lot like Martha.

"Very creative, Rose, but this might be easier," the Doctor commented, removing two long plastic zip ties from his jacket pocket.

"Thanks." She secured one around the woman's wrists and the other around her ankles, making the ties snug without cutting off circulation.

"So, Daleks?" Jack asked, as he received two more ties from the Doctor and used them to bind Yvonne's wrists and ankles.

"Evil," the Doctor replied succinctly. "A genetically engineered species filled with hate that will kill anything and everything that isn't a Dalek."

"You think that's the same Void ship we saw in the other Torchwood," Rose said. "The one with millions of Daleks inside."

"And the Cult of Skaro," the Doctor added.

"But what's it doing here? Isn't it supposed to be in the other universe?"

"Something caused plans to change. Cybermen going there; Daleks coming here. But why?" The Doctor ran his hands through his unruly hair as he thought. "From Jack's reaction, Daleks aren't particularly common in this universe."

"Someone must want them here. Did you see those two? They were no different than all those poor people who marched off into the Cyber factories." Rose looked at not-Martha pityingly. "Since they're unconscious, do you think it's safe to remove their earpods?"

She knelt beside the prone woman and reached her hand out towards the earpod when the Doctor shouted, "Stop!" She heard the tell-tale whirr of the sonic screwdriver. Suddenly the woman jerked violently and was still.

"Oh my god, she's not breathing!" Rose cried. "What happened?"

"She's dead, Rose," the Doctor said sadly.

"What the hell did you do?" Jack demanded, roughly grabbing the Doctor by the arm.

"She was already dead," he defended, pulling away from Jack. "Whoever installed those earpods killed her. I've seen this before. In fact, I've seen almost exactly this but in the other universe."

"Well, it is parallel," Jack offered.

The Doctor shook his head. "But not identical. Mickey is Ricky, Rose Tyler's a dog, and there are no Time Lords."

"Hey!" Jack objected on Rose's behalf.

"S'all right, he's not being rude for once. My parents in this universe didn't have kids, just a dog called Rose." She looked back to the Doctor. "But who would do this?"

"The Cybermen, except it doesn't make any sense. Why would Cybermen want to let Daleks into this universe? How would Cybermen even know of the Daleks?" He knelt beside Martha's cousin, feeling ashamed that he didn't know her name. "I'm so sorry," he whispered as he aimed the sonic once again at her earpod. He reached for the pod with his other hand and fervently hoped he'd been successful at detaching the brain matter from the pod. With a slight twist, he pulled the earpod free, and thankfully just the earpod. Rose was resilient, but he didn't think he needed to subject her to seeing the brains of someone familiar.

"And now we follow the signal," the Doctor announced, holding up the still-blinking earpod. "Find out who's controlling Torchwood."

"It seems to be close by," Jack commented, consulting his Vortex Manipulator.

"Inside this building, I'd say."

"Wait," Rose called before the Doctor could make it through the door. "What about her?" She pointed back to Yvonne Hartman's unconscious form. "We can't just leave her."

The Doctor seemed to squint at Yvonne as if he were looking at something very faint. "Oh she'll be all right," he pronounced dismissively. He quickly scanned her with the sonic screwdriver before removing her two earpods and shoving them in his pocket. "Someone will find her soon enough, but even without the earpods, I don't trust her not to open the breach again."

"Why didn't they kill her?" Rose asked.

"The brain implants made people emotionless, almost like actual Cybermen. Yvonne here is too high profile for that—someone might have noticed her behaviour. She's only got the standard earpods, still capable of mind control but not connected to the Cyber leader like this one is."

Following the signal received by the earpod, the Doctor led them back down a flight of stairs and through a winding corridor to another part of the building. This section seemed to still be under construction, with plastic sheets covering the walls. The sheets obscured the overhead lights, making this floor far dimmer than the previous one.

Jack pulled aside one of the plastic sheets to peer into a room and was shocked to see blood spattered on the plastic-covered floor. A whirring noise drew his attention upward, but something jerked him backwards just as the rotating saw began to descend.

"What the hell was that?" Jack gasped.

"That's how humans get turned into Cybermen, so no wandering off." The Doctor put the sonic screwdriver and the earpod in his jacket pocket, unable to narrow down the signal source further. He took Rose's hand in his, taking comfort in knowing she was safely right beside him.

The Doctor started to pull aside another sheet-covered doorway but could smell the blood and tissue within and moved on. The corridor only grew darker as they moved away from the center of the building. The sun was setting, and light no longer poured through the building's glass exterior.

" _If we find Cybermen here, I want you to run back to the TARDIS_ ," he spoke in her head.

"What, and leave you here?" Rose scoffed aloud. "Never gonna happen."

The Doctor frowned at her before reaching out to pull another plastic curtain aside. This room was larger and filled with computer equipment. At the back of the room on what could only be described as a throne sat a massive Cyberman. The silver robotic creature was wider than the average Cyberman, and an angular, bracket-like antenna sat atop its head.

"You are unprogrammed," what was likely the Cyber leader pronounced.

"And planning to stay that way, thanks," Rose quipped.

The Doctor released Rose's hand and stepped closer to the Cyberman. "Why are you trying to bring the Void ship—the sphere—to this world?"

"We have been given the means to cure this world," the Cyberman intoned mechanically.

"Cure? You mean make every human like you. Take away their individuality," the Doctor said with scorn. "But the factories have been destroyed, and the Cybermen are imprisoned. Seems you're rather stuck to me."

"The sphere will bring us an army. Together, we will upgrade the universe."

"But how can you know that?" Rose asked. "How can you know what's inside the sphere?"

"Our allies have seen the future," the Cyberman said evenly. "We intended only to follow the sphere, but we now know we would have become trapped in the Void. Instead we shall bring the sphere to this world and spread across the universe."

A portion of the Doctor's mind tried to work out who could know the Cybermen would eventually become trapped in the Void whilst he continued questioning the Cyber leader. "How do you know these allies won't destroy you?"

"Our goals are aligned."

The Doctor arched an eyebrow. "And what goal is that?"

"Perfection of the universe."

"That sounds a bit like the Daleks," Rose whispered.

"Except a Dalek's perfect universe doesn't include Cybermen," the Doctor whispered back.

"You will be upgraded," the Cyber leader intoned, unfazed by the separate conversation going on. Heavy, echoing footsteps from the corridor announced the approach of additional Cybermen.

"Upgrade this," Jack called nonchalantly as he tossed a palm-sized object towards the massive Cyberman. "I suggest we run."

The Doctor wasted no time grabbing Rose's hand and sprinting from the room. A thud behind them caused the Doctor to look back briefly. The Cyberman was slumped over, head on the ground and rectangular antennae crushed under the weight. "What was that?"

"Electromagnetic pulse bomb," Jack answered, slowing as they reached the stairwell.

"Where'd you have that?" Rose asked.

Jack quirked an eyebrow. "Do you really want to know?"

"No," the Doctor replied quickly, starting down the narrow winding stairwell. "The Cybermen will select a new leader now, but there's no guarantee they'll try to cross the Void if they're all waiting on these allies."

"The Daleks," Rose added.

The Doctor paused in mid-step, frowning as he thought. "But how do they know there's an army of Daleks within the Void ship? Do they even know what's in the Void ship? And even if they did know, they can't open it."

"Why not?" Jack asked, cutting off the Doctor's frenzied questions.

"A time traveller's gotta touch it. Mickey opened it by accident…" Rose trailed off, thinking a moment before grabbing the Doctor's arm in excitement. "Mickey and Jake are here. They can help us!"

The Doctor shook his head with a hint of sadness, knowing Rose missed her lifelong friend. "They can't know we're here. How would we explain our presence in this universe?"

"Another crack in time," Rose suggested, undaunted.

The Doctor took Rose's hand gently, his voice soft and filled with regret. "And when you're stuck here, Mickey will tell you I'll be back because if I've already popped by this universe twice, it shouldn't be any trouble for me to come get you. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn't. Not until the walls started collapsing."

Rose nodded silently and wrapped her arms around the Doctor, momentarily burying her face in his shoulder. He held her close and ran one hand through her long blonde hair.

"The stars going out—that starts not long after when we are now," Jack realised. "That was you?"

"That was the Daleks," the Doctor answered brusquely, loosening his hold on Rose enough so that she could turn her head to look at Jack. "But it allowed Rose to come back to our original universe. She found me," he finished with a hint of amazement.

Rose smiled up at him. "Always said I was gonna stay with you forever."

"Then how did you two end up back here?" Jack asked as the Doctor resumed leading them down the endless flights of stairs.

The Doctor's face darkened slightly. "That's a story for another time. Now we need to figure out how to get the Cybermen into the Void and preserve the fixed point in time." A grin spread slowly across his face. "And I think I have an idea."


	7. Chapter 7

"You're going to build a Cyber leader?" Jack asked incredulously from within the safe confines of the TARDIS console room. Rose had similar thoughts, but she'd seen so much in her years with the Doctor that little surprised her—certainly not his mad but brilliant plans.

"Yes, and quickly." The Doctor's voice was muffled, as the upper half of his body was underneath the TARDIS' metal floor grating, his knees precariously near the edge of the open panel. "Before they instate a new leader."

"Oi, that's my fiancé you're ogling," Rose complained, elbowing Jack lightly in the ribs. Though frankly she couldn't really blame Jack for admiring the Doctor's bum in fitted blue trousers.

Jack's face lit up as he tore his gaze away to look at Rose. "You kids are getting married? I'm not sure whether I should be happy or disappointed." He swept Rose up into an enthusiastic hug followed by a dramatic kiss on the lips that made her giggle.

"Hey!" the Doctor protested, having returned from the bowels of the TARDIS in time to witness Jack getting a little too friendly with Rose for his comfort.

"Sorry," Jack grinned, unrepentant. He quickly closed the distance between them before placing his hands on either side of the Doctor's face and giving him a quick kiss, as well. Rose began laughing hysterically at the Doctor's shocked expression, and Jack looked entirely too pleased with himself.

"Not the first time Jack's kissed ya," Rose teased with a wide grin.

The Doctor huffed in exasperation. "Does no one understand the need for urgency here?"

"You're the one always pointing out this is a time machine," Rose countered.

"Yes, well," he trailed off, not having much of a retort. "We need to go to the Cyber factory."

Rose's dark eyebrows drew together in confusion. "But the factory was destroyed the first time we were here."

"Yes, Rose, I remember. But I don't need much, just a few bits and bobs, the kind of thing no one pays any attention to in the rubble." He started running around the console, and Rose used her limited knowledge of the TARDIS' controls to prepare it for flight. Jack put the grating panel back in place before one of them fell through the hole in the floor. Only seconds later, the ship shuddered, indicating their arrival.

The Doctor flung the TARDIS doors open, but Rose, looking over his shoulder, could hardly see a thing in the darkened building. He pulled a pearly white, grapefruit-sized sphere from his jacket pocket and tossed it upwards. The sphere hovered and began to glow like a small moon, lighting up the remains of the Cyber factory. The large warehouse was charred and Rose could see stars through a hole in the roof. Metal limbs blown off Cybermen caught in the explosion littered the floor, shiny silver reflecting the cool white light.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Jack called as the Doctor picked his way carefully through the wreckage coating the floor.

"The original control room. It's how Lumic controlled his victims. We need their transmitter to operate the Cyber leader. Hook it up to the TARDIS console, install the earpod receivers in the late Cyberleader, add a power source, and voilà, we command the Cybermen into the Void."

"That doesn't sound so hard," Jack commented. "Except finding anything in this mess is a bit like trying to find a Phenarian flea on a magritaur."

"A what?" Rose asked.

"Very tiny flea, very large beast with hair as long as yours all over its body," the Doctor clarified.

Rose shuddered. "What was wrong with a needle in a haystack?"

"Well, assuming the needle is made of a ferrous metal, any decently strong electromagnet will find it in a jif. Not much challenge in that, is there? And a challenge, well, that's what makes things interesting. Now, once the Cybermen are off this planet, events should unfold as we expect them to, or at least something close to it, and then we move on to far scarier things."

Jack glanced from Rose to the Doctor, and even in the eerie cold glow of the gravity globe, he could tell the Doctor had just put his foot in it.

"By scary, you don't mean our wedding, do you?" Rose asked with suspicion.

"No, I mean your mother," he said bluntly. "General Tyler." He seemed oblivious to Rose's scowling reaction.

Jack had to stifle a laugh before taking pity on the hapless alien. "So where's my invitation?" he demanded playfully, hoping to defuse the situation.

Focused on the metal parts littering the ground, the Doctor didn't even look up as he replied. "I'm afraid you're going to have to wait a couple years. Already delivered it to your future self."

"Then I guess we'd better survive this."

"Doctor," Rose called, having wandered away a bit in her annoyance. "Is this what you're looking for? A sort of computer-looking thing."

The Doctor executed a surprisingly graceful leap over a pile of wreckage to reach her and used the sonic screwdriver to unlock the panel covering the table-sized computer. "Brilliant!" he shouted, digging further inside the panel into a tangle of wires and circuit boards.

"Doc, Rose, I think we've got company," Jack called, drawing his sonic blaster from the holster beneath his coat. Rose turned to see a shimmer that she normally would have dismissed as a trick of the eerie light until two forms faded into existence on the broken remains of a catwalk overhead.

"Doctor, hurry!" Rose urged. "I think they're Time Agents." A blue bolt of energy shot in Jack's direction pretty much confirmed her theory.

The Doctor shoved a handful of parts into his jacket pocket and rummaged around, his right arm buried up to his elbow in the trans-dimensional pocket. "Jack! Put this on—no arguing," he barked, tossing something shiny and silver through the air in a graceful arc. Jack grabbed it easily with one hand and dove behind a pile of bricks and Cybermen parts for cover.

"Are these headphones?" Jack asked, unfolding the silver object.

"Just put it on! Rose, stay down," he ordered, pointing his sonic at the gravity globe and extinguishing the light. The factory was plunged into darkness except for the feeble starlight coming through the gaping hole in the roof. "Hard to aim in the dark. Well, for most species it is."

"Doctor, they're going to take him, wipe his memory," Rose hissed.

"I know," the Doctor replied quietly. "I'm sorry. But there is one thing I can do to help, and you need to stay here. Please, Rose." He clutched her hand tightly, and she could feel his desperation.

Rose nodded, not entirely sure he could see the gesture in the dark, and felt him brush past. The Doctor made his way quietly over to Jack and was grateful to see the Captain had listened for once as the polished metal device reflected the nearly imperceptible light in the warehouse. He faintly shushed Jack and grabbed the device from his head, storing it once again in his pocket.

"I'll draw them off," Jack whispered. "You and Rose make a run for the TARDIS."

Normally the Doctor would balk at leaving a companion behind, even Jack (usually), but this was about preserving the timeline. "Meet back at Torchwood Tower."

"See you in hell," Jack replied before standing and rapidly firing multiple blasts in the direction of the other Time Agents. Keeping his head low, the Doctor made his way back to Rose. He kept a tight hold on her waist as he led her through the factory, steadying her when she stumbled over unseen wreckage. Occasional energy blasts lit the room, providing glimpses of the path ahead.

Rose chanced a glance back at the fray from the ramp of the TARDIS, just in time to see one of the agents teleport next to Jack and fire at him point-blank. Rose screamed as Jack fell to the ground and the TARDIS door swung shut in her face.

"We have to go back for him!"

The Doctor ignored her, racing around the central console until he was satisfied they were safe from the Time Agency. Eventually he returned to where she still stood on the ramp, placing his hands on her shoulders. "I'm so sorry, Rose, but we can't. This is supposed to happen. The Time Agency takes Jack and wipes his memory. He'll be all right."

The Doctor's words and earnest expression had a calming effect on her even if she was still worried about Jack. "So what was with the headphones?"

The Doctor looked momentarily perplexed. "Oh you mean these?" He held up the shiny silver headgear before snapping it onto part of the console. "It's inspired a bit by the Chameleon Arch, not that you know what that is," he realised. "Remind me one day to tell you about the three months I spent as a human in 1913."

"Human?" Rose echoed, utterly confused.

"Nevermind that. The Chameleon Arch, in addition to rewriting biology, is also capable of safely storing away memories—specifically Time Lord memories, which means creating a similar device to store human memories was quite simple in comparison," he preened.

Rose was still confused. "So you're saying you're the one who took Jack's memories, not the Time Agency?"

"Not quite. I've merely copied the last two years of Jack's memories—a bit like backing up a computer hard drive. The Time Agency is still going to wipe his memory, and he'll spend a few months trying to find out why. It isn't perfect, there will still be some gaps, but after we deal with the Cybermen, we'll find Jack again and give him back his memory."

Rose looked at him silently for a moment before throwing herself at him and locking her arms around the back of his neck. "That's brilliant! Hang on," she pulled away slightly. "Do you always have that gizmo on you?"

The Doctor wrapped his arms around Rose's waist and his eyes twinkled. "I only finished building it an hour ago. What did you think I was doing under the TARDIS console for so long?"

She swatted at his chest. "Oi, you were the one going on about moving quickly."

"Time machine," he said cheekily. Rose rolled her eyes but then went up on her toes to kiss him anyway.

"So now we've just gotta send five million Cybermen into the Void, and we'll be on our way, yeah?"

The Doctor grinned before releasing her and darting back to the console. "Allons-y, Rose Tyler!"


	8. Chapter 8

The TARDIS materialised in Torchwood Tower just minutes after they had originally left, this time on the same floor as the recently downed Cyber leader. The Doctor sprinted from what appeared to be a dull metal cabinet carrying a mass of wires and circuit boards in his hands. The Cyber leader was still head-down on the ground, and the Doctor set his contraption gently on the floor as he crouched beside the hulking Cyberman.

"You might not want to watch this part," he warned Rose, who was keeping watch for other Cybermen or nosy Torchwood agents. Using the sonic screwdriver, he carefully dismantled the Cyber leader's head, revealing the human brain within. The dull pink matter within was pierced with multiple wires connecting it to the metal suit. The sonic severed the wires quickly, and the Doctor wrapped his hands in a piece of plastic sheeting to remove the brain.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured to the organ as he set it aside.

"Oh my God," Rose breathed. The Doctor's head whipped up sharply, worried they'd been caught but instead found her staring at the human brain wrapped in plastic. Their eyes met, and Rose took a deep breath before turning back to watch the corridor.

The Doctor took the receiver unit he'd cobbled together using the earpods and various parts taken from within the TARDIS and wired it into the Cyber leader's now-empty metal head. He reassembled exterior panels of the head and changed the setting on the sonic to activate the receiver. The Cyberman pushed backwards into a crouch, the bent antenna atop his head making him look a bit worse for wear.

"Aha!" the Doctor cried. Rose ran back into the room at his shout, deliberately avoiding looking in the direction of the brain.

"It works?"

"Of course it works," he replied smugly. "Now, back to the TARDIS to send the Cybermen once more into the breach. Quite literally."

Rose couldn't help but smile at how his eyes twinkled with the pun. She slipped her hand in his as they walked the short distance back to their ship. Once inside, the Doctor ran to the console monitor to fire up the transmitter. "And we're broadcasting live," he announced in a deep radio DJ voice. "All Cyber boys and girls around the world into the Void."

"Doctor, how are they going to open the Void?"

"Their Torchwood henchmen—or women—I suppose, though there's no reason they can't open it themselves if they set half a mind to it."

"And how long's it gonna take?" she asked, pressing into his side partly to get a better look at the monitor and partly to be closer to him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they stood there watching. "What exactly are we supposed to be looking at?"

The Doctor turned a knob on the console and the view on the monitor changed to a crowd of Cybermen to either side of the massive white wall of the lever room. "We're seeing what the Cyber leader sees."

"It doesn't look like the breach is open," Rose commented. She didn't see any sign of Yvonne Hartman or any other human employees of Torchwood who could open it, either.

"No, it doesn't," he replied slowly, pulling away and rapidly hitting buttons on the console. He lunged to the side to get his face in front of the monitor again but saw that nothing on the screen had changed. "Why isn't it open?" He produced a rubber mallet from underneath the console and gave the section to the right of the monitor a good whack. Still nothing changed as the Cybermen continued to stand motionless in the lever room.

"We're going to have to open it ourselves," he said reluctantly.

Rose could have protested entering a room filled with at least a hundred Cybermen, but she merely answered, "Okay."

The Doctor took Rose's hand in his as they left the safety of the TARDIS. He could feel her apprehension, not just mentally but through the vise grip she kept on his hand. "If we open the breach, won't the Void ship come through?" she asked.

He paused for a moment before the door that led to the lever room. "No, not with five million Cybermen entering the Void. It would be like trying to swim against a strong current."

Rose nodded but still looked worried. She hesitated a moment before asking, "Will it try to pull us in?"

The Doctor's eyebrows rose as he considered the motivation for her question. He gently grasped her upper arms and held her close as he looked down into her worried eyes. "No, the Cybermen will enter the Void of their own...well, it isn't exactly free will is it? But I can't close the breach now, not if they're going to eventually make it to the other universe. Just hold still as a statue with the lever and hope the Cybermen don't notice you."

"And if they do notice?"

"Run. Specifically run to the TARDIS. Rose," he said more quietly, bringing up a hand to brush her hair back from her face. He ducked his head to press his lips to hers, combing his fingers through her hair to cup the back of her head.

Rose wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, drawing him even closer and not yet ready to end the kiss. She felt something warm wash over her and knew the Doctor's shields had lowered just enough (whether intentional or not) to let his feelings of love and affection through. She tried her best, however clumsily, to respond in kind.

"Be careful," she whispered against his lips as she finally pulled away. She turned, and without a glance back, strode into the lever room, staying close to the wall to avoid the Cybermen's notice.

The room was jam-packed with the motionless robotic creatures, and it reminded Rose of the Cyber factory when it had been active. The Cyber leader stood at the front of the crowd, facing the white wall, but it, too, was unmoving. Given that it was supposedly under the Doctor's control, she wasn't surprised.

Rose grasped the large bronze lever with both hands and looked across the room at the Doctor. He bent over one of the computer workstations, typing furiously. Seconds later, he moved to his own lever and nodded at Rose. Together, they slowly moved their levers upright, and Rose tried to ignore her terrible feeling of déjà vu.

As soon as she felt the lever click into place, the computer once again announced, "Online." The wall glowed brightly and began to move, but still the Cybermen were motionless.

"Doctor," Rose decided to risk shouting. "They aren't going."

"Yes, I can see that," he replied with exasperation. Keeping one hand on the lever, he used the other to fish his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket. He twisted the silver cylinder a few times before turning it on and waving it about like he was conducting an orchestra. Rose desperately wanted to ask what she was doing but didn't want to risk the Cybermen finally paying her notice.

After a few more exuberant gestures with the sonic, the Cyber leader began walking slowly towards the glowing wall, each heavy footstep echoing throughout the room. Other Cybermen fell into orderly lines as they marched in unison towards the Void, the sound of hundreds of metal feet striking the floor uncomfortably loud in the enclosed space.

"It's working!" Rose shouted excitedly, regretting her action seconds later as two Cybermen turned sharply out of the queue to face her.


	9. Chapter 9

Rose stood frozen next to the lever, barely daring to breathe as she stared at the two Cybermen watching her. Other Cybermen began to flow around them into the open breach, and she could no longer see the Doctor through the crowd. They weren't coming towards her, but they weren't marching towards the breach with the others, either. After what felt like an eternity, the room started to clear again, but the two errant Cybermen were rooted in place.

"Doctor," Rose squeaked, hating to draw attention to herself but unsure how to make the Cybermen leave. She could once again see him across the room and would have breathed a sigh of relief if she were allowing herself to breathe at the moment. The Doctor's head whipped towards her, followed quickly by the sonic screwdriver, its bright blue glow visible even in the blinding brightness of the white room. The remaining Cybermen silently turned in unison and began to march with heavy footsteps towards the breach. They passed through the bright white wall as if it were liquid and were quickly swallowed up by white.

"That should do it," the Doctor called to her as he slowly began to lower his lever. "Offline," the computer confirmed as Rose moved her lever towards the floor. As soon as her lever was down and locked, she sprinted across the room and crashed into the Doctor in relief. She snaked her arms around his waist and held tight, thankful her irrational fear of being separated from him again was just that.

"That wasn't five million Cybermen," Rose commented, leaning back but not quite ready to let go yet.

"Not through here, but if you'll remember, the 'ghosts' appeared all over the world, not just in Torchwood Tower."

"So these are just the ones that will end up at Torchwood? But if you're controlling the leader, how will they even get there?"

"It will take them three years to cross the Void, but it won't take long for them to discover their current leader is a puppet without a master. They'll create a new one long before then."

"So that's it? Everything's back on track, yeah? I mean, we're still here and reaper-free, so it must be all right."

The Doctor slipped his hand in hers as they turned their backs on the white wall. "It would seem so. All in a day's work for the Stuff of Legends." Rose gave him her signature tongue-touched grin in reply. "So, back to 2014 London?"

"Yes, but try to arrive at least few days _before_ the wedding," she teased, swinging their joined hands as they walked. "But first I think I need at least eight hours sleep before facing mum. And a hot bath sounds gorg…" She trailed off as they rounded a corner and caught sight of Yvonne Hartman leaning casually against the doorway of the room containing the TARDIS. A large black laser pistol dangled casually from one manicured hand.

"I don't know whether I should thank you for taking care of the Cyberman infestation or reproach you for tying me up and leaving me behind," she said coolly, the pistol remaining loosely by her side.

"Seems you've come out all right," the Doctor replied. "If you don't mind, we'll be on our way now."

"You mean in here?" Yvonne pushed off the door jamb to stand upright and glanced over her shoulder at the room beyond. "Where you've left your very clever ship. It looks just like a filing cabinet. Very convincing. Might not have even noticed it except our only hard copies are down in the archives."

The Doctor squeezed Rose's hand, and she knew he meant for them to wait out Yvonne's little speech. Pistol or no, she was merely one human between them and the TARDIS.

"Oh, it took me a bit to figure it out," Yvonne continued, examining her fingernails as if they were more interesting than anything else going on. "We don't have any photos, but the Torchwood records are filled with stories of the alien called the Doctor and his shape-shifting ship. Sometimes it's a cabinet or a phone booth or even a blue police box." She looked up from her manicure to face the Doctor and Rose. "You do realise that's the wrong colour."

"Not where we're from," he muttered under his breath.

Yvonne's expression brightened. "So it's true, you're not only from a different planet but from a different universe. Oh, I can't wait to get the full report on you," she said enthusiastically.

"Sorry, no time to stay and chat. We've got a wedding to attend. Important cultural tradition and all that." The Doctor took a step forward causing Yvonne to finally point her weapon at him.

"I'm afraid I simply can't allow that," she said mildly, not sounding at all like she was pointing a deadly weapon at another living being. "You see, we have a saying at Torchwood: 'If it's alien, it's ours.' And you, Doctor, are alien."

"I hate to break it to you," Rose interrupted with a hint of sarcasm. "But he's human–"

"Oi!" the Doctor protested.

"–and so am I," Rose finished.

"Not with that kind of technology," Yvonne insisted. "The things we could do with that."

The Doctor's expression turned hard. "You mean the people you could kill."

Yvonne's eyes widened. "We don't kill anyone. I don't know what kind of organisation you think this is, Doctor."

The Doctor turned briefly to Rose and internally cursed how much he still didn't know about this universe. He could come up with plenty of examples but had no idea whether they'd happened in this universe.

"The Sycorax," Rose spat. "New Year's Day. Did you already forget?"

Yvonne scoffed. "Those weren't people, they were aliens. And they were going to kill one third of the population!"

"It was a bluff. Blood control doesn't work that way. But you didn't even give them a chance!" Rose's temper was slipping, and she was getting too close to Yvonne's pistol for the Doctor's comfort.

Yvonne's conviction didn't waver. "They were a threat. We did exactly what we were meant to do."

"And that is exactly why Torchwood can't be trusted with advanced technology." He slipped his free hand into his jacket pocket and wrapped his fingers around the sonic screwdriver, carefully changing the setting without attracting attention. "You lot are entirely too trigger-happy."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much," Rose said quite calmly for having a laser pistol still pointed squarely at her chest. "I think Torchwood will be going through some drastic reorganisation in the near future."

"What do you mean by that?" Yvonne squawked. The Doctor took advantage of her momentary outrage to activate the sonic screwdriver. Yvonne didn't even seem to notice the tell-tale whirring sound, but she did notice the pistol suddenly became searingly hot and dropped it with a yelp of pain. Her face slackened as Rose advanced menacingly, pulling her elbow back before delivering a solid right hook to Yvonne's jaw. The Torchwood executive slammed into the doorframe and slumped to the ground.

The Doctor wasted no time as he leapt over Yvonne's prone form and grabbed Rose by the hand, running the last few metres to the TARDIS. He was already at the console by the time the doors swung shut. Only once they were safely within the Time Vortex did he look at Rose questioningly, concerned by her behaviour. He knew she wasn't above violence when necessary, but he'd never seen her punch someone like that. Her mother's vicious slap paled in comparison.

Rose, for her part, looked slightly ashamed when her eyes finally met the Doctor's across the console. "Worst day of my life," Rose said, sounding more sad than angry now. "And she made it happen."

The Doctor rounded the console quickly and enfolded Rose in a tight embrace. She hid her face against the lapel of his jacket, and he soothingly brushed his fingers through her tangled hair. "She was only one factor of several," he said gently and without reproach. "No one person separated us."

"I never wanted to leave you," she sniffed, squeezing him tightly.

It didn't require any of his still superior, mostly Time Lord senses to know Rose was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Even after they'd been reunited in this universe, she still had the occasional nightmare about that white wall, and he knew this trip had been particularly hard on her. Without another thought, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her in the direction of their room.

"Where are we going?" Rose asked after recovering from the momentary surprise of being picked up.

"To bed." He found the door to their room conveniently open and sent a quick thanks to the TARDIS. "And after we've both rested, I think there's a wedding at which we're expected." He set Rose down on her side of the bed and began pulling off her black boots.

"Bad luck to see the bride before the wedding," she mumbled with her eyes already closed.

The Doctor toed his trainers off and draped his suit jacket over a chair before crawling into bed beside her. "Then we'll just have to arrive the day before."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Jackie Tyler went running when she heard the wheezing noise that preceded the arrival of the TARDIS. She slid to a stop on the hardwood floor when she reached the back door and saw an all-too-familiar blue police box sitting in her back garden.

"What in the bloody hell," she muttered, exchanging her house slippers for trainers and marching down the steps to the lawn as the blue door swung inwards and her daughter stepped out. Rose's face lit up, and she hugged her mum fiercely.

When Rose let go, Jackie narrowed her kohl-lined eyes at the Doctor standing quietly behind her daughter. "Cutting it a bit close, aren't you?"

"What day is it?" Rose asked, taking in the large white tent and latticed archway that had been erected at opposite ends of the expansive lawn. She gave the Doctor a concerned look, but his confident expression didn't waver.

"Friday!" Jackie practically screeched. "I was starting to worry you weren't going to be here, and then what was I going to tell everyone?"

"Must I remind you it travels in time," the Doctor countered.

Jackie rounded on him ferociously, and if it weren't for his pride, he might have taken a step away from the smaller woman. "I've got two words for you, Doctor. Twelve. Months." She accompanied each word with a poke to his sternum.

"Will you never let that go?" the Doctor asked with a sigh.

Jackie arched a thin eyebrow but said nothing, instead grabbing her daughter's hands and tugging her towards the house. "We have so many things to do today. Get our nails done, try on your dress one last time, go over the final schedule for tomorrow. Thankfully I've got Becky to pick up Tony from school. If I'd realised you were gonna be gone for over two weeks, I'd have done some of this sooner!" Jackie stomped up the back steps. "Oh, and a guest arrived last night—that good looking Captain bloke that was on the Dalek ship with us. But he didn't recognise me!"

"Jack's here?" Rose asked excitedly.

"Yeah, he's taken over my kitchen, and I can't–" Before Jackie could finish, Rose had taken off in a sprint down the corridor. Jackie frowned at looked at the Doctor. "How come he doesn't recognise me?"

"He's not the same man." He could hear Rose's excited squeal from down the hall. "You've met the Jack Harkness from our original universe, not this one."

The Doctor found his fiancée in the middle of her mother's spacious kitchen, wrapped around Jack Harkness. He tamped down on that little bit of irrational jealousy he experienced every time the now-former Time Agent was around. He knew, of course, that Jack had come through their adventure perfectly fine, but for Rose, seeing was believing.

"Doc!" Jack greeted cheerfully, clapping the Doctor on the shoulder. "I've come to take you out." Both Tyler women and the Doctor looked at Jack with confusion. "I've been reading up on twenty-first century wedding traditions."

The Doctor saw Rose smirk and knew she'd figured out what Jack was getting at, but it took one more sentence before he understood. "We're having a stag night," Jack finished proudly.

"Tonight?" Jackie screeched. "The wedding's tomorrow. You had better not be hung over. Or do anything else you'll regret. I'll not have you ruining my daughter's wedding." The threat in her voice was clear enough that the Doctor didn't risk pointing out that it was his wedding, too.

Rose, however, laid a calming hand on her mum's tense shoulder. "See that thing on his wrist. It lets him travel through time and space, sorta like the TARDIS." The Doctor huffed indignantly, but she ignored him. "They can go out and have their fun and still be back early enough to get a full night's rest. Right?" She directed her question to Jack with an expression that demanded he agree.

"Right. Absolutely." Jack gave them his most disarming smile.

"Which means you'll return while it's still today, the twentieth of June, 2014, yeah?"

"Of course!"

"Hang on," the Doctor interrupted. "Maybe I planned to spend the day with Rose...or working on the TARDIS."

"Sorry, Doctor," Jackie didn't sound sorry at all. "Rose's day is booked."

"And the TARDIS is fine," Rose added. "You should go with Jack. Have fun. Just maybe not Jack's kind of fun."

"If you insist," Jack sighed melodramatically, kissing Rose quickly on the cheek.

"Why can't we take the TARDIS?" the Doctor asked, suddenly making the connection with Rose's explanation of the Vortex Manipulator.

"Because Jack's taking you out, and whatever he has in mind, you'll either refuse to go there or the TARDIS will decide instead to land you in the middle of some planet's civil war."

"That sounds far more entertaining than whatever Jack has in mind," the Doctor groused under his breath.

"Call it a cultural experience." Rose wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and went up on her tiptoes to kiss him. "Have fun, and I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, and go easy on the hypervodka."

"I'll have you know my liver is perfectly capable of processing alcohol on-demand. Superior–" The Doctor's last word was cut off as Jack linked an arm around his and activated the Vortex Manipulator. The two disappeared in a faint shimmer of energy.

For once, Jackie looked impressed. "It's just like Star Trek."

 

* * *

 

Hours later, Rose lay in the bed of her room in the mansion staring at the ceiling and wondering how a day of primping could be so exhausting. Nonetheless, the day spent with her mum had been wonderful. It was almost like old times, years back before she'd met the Doctor. When she hadn't been running around the estate with Keisha and Shireen, it was always just her and her mum. Even after she'd come to Pete's world, she was more focused on finding a way back to the Doctor than on her family.

But in other ways, it was nothing like those old days on the estate. Instead of taking the bus, they'd had a driver to take them to a salon they never could have afforded before. They had lunch at beautiful but overpriced cafe instead of the local chip shop. After years of living lean, Jackie had adapted to wealth quite easily.

Rose picked up her mobile from the table beside her bed to check the time. Just after eleven. The Doctor and Jack might be back by now. She'd tried to fall asleep for the last hour, knowing she'd have to be up early for hair and makeup, but the bedroom didn't feel like hers anymore. She'd spent the last year and a half living on the TARDIS with the Doctor, and this place wasn't home anymore. If she were honest, it had never been her home, just a place to stay until she could get back to the Doctor.

Rose grabbed her dressing gown and slipped her phone into the pocket. Her home was just across the lawn, and that's where she planned to stay, tradition be damned. She'd just sneak back in come morning before her mother found out. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Rose pushed the familiar blue door of the TARDIS open slowly and felt a wave of welcome as the entered the warm gold-glowing interior. "Not back yet, are they?" she asked the ship. The lights dimmed briefly, and she took that as a no. "Well, I'm going to bed. Big day tomorrow and all that." She dragged a hand lightly across the console before continuing through to the corridor and their bedroom.

Even lying in her own bed, Rose found sleep elusive as her mind kept wandering. Tomorrow she was getting married...to the Doctor. If she could go back and tell her 20-year-old self that, she wouldn't believe it, no matter how in love with him she was even then. Sure, she'd indulged in the occasional romantic fantasy as she drifted off to sleep, but she'd convinced herself that just travelling with him would be enough.

Even during their years of separation, when she dreamed about being reunited with him she only occasionally allowed herself to entertain the idea that he might return her feelings—that he'd been about to tell her he loved her too before his image disappeared from that beach. She'd told herself she'd happily stay with him forever even if he didn't love her that way, or was just unwilling to admit it. She twisted her engagement ring around her finger and smiled to herself. After all she'd been through, she'd never consider anything to be impossible again.

A sound drew Rose's attention, and it sounded like the TARDIS's exterior doors swinging shut. She shouldn't have been able to hear that from within the bedroom, so she assumed the TARDIS wanted her to know. "Back from their night of debauchery, are they?" she asked the ship aloud.

Wrapping her dressing gown tightly around herself once again, she opened the door to the corridor and could hear voices coming from the console room. She found Jack practically carrying the Doctor towards the jumpseat, and she ran towards them.

"What happened? Is he all right?" Rose frantically took the Doctor's hand in her own and brushed his dark fringe away from his forehead.

"Oh he's fine," Jack assured her, drawing the words out a little more slowly than usual. "Just had a little more liquor than he can handle."

At his words, Rose's panic cleared enough to detect the distinctive smell of hypervodka—something akin to a mix of cheap vodka and petrol. The Doctor looked up at Rose with glassy eyes and gave her a crooked grin. "Rose Tyler."

"What happened to all your talk about 'superior physiology'?"

The Doctor shook his head and then seemed to regret the action, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. "This body's rubbish," he groaned. "Can't control anything. Metabolism, hormones, temperature, it's all a complete mess. Can't understand how you get on like this."

"Here, take this," Jack held out a thin, translucent square smaller than a postage stamp.

"Hang on, what in this?" Rose demanded, pushing the Doctor's hand away. "Some human medicines will kill him."

"Well," the Doctor added, "maybe not anymore, but I'm not eager to find out."

"It breaks down the alcohol so it can metabolise faster. It'll keep him from having the hangover of his life tomorrow."

Rose nodded, and the Doctor took the small square from Jack and placed it on his tongue. "I'm too drunk to tell what's in this," he declared giddily. "Normally I'm quite good at it. Very tactile, this body. Rose hates it when I go around licking things," he said to Jack. "Not always. Well, I say not always, but I mean very specific–"

"Let's get you off to bed," Rose interrupted loudly, turning slightly pink as she grabbed the Doctor's arm and helped him stand.

Jack leered but took the Doctor's other arm to steady him between them. "You know, he's a lot friendlier this way. Maybe we should get him drunk more often."

"Not gonna happen," Rose sing-songed as they began to shuffle the short distance from the console room to the bedroom.

"Isn't this where the infirmary was before?" Jack asked in confusion as the door seemed to swing open of its own accord.

"She's brilliant," the Doctor replied, already sounding a little more sober. "She can rearrange everything however she likes. I once couldn't find the console room for an entire week because she'd hidden it."

Jack looked embarrassed as they lowered the Doctor onto the bed. "I didn't actually mean to get him this drunk."

"Hmm? Oh, no, she really does that." Rose helped the Doctor out of his jacket before he lay back against the pillows and knocked his trainers off his feet and onto the floor. "Now, I'm sure the TARDIS has a room ready for you." She walked back to the door and turned to look at Jack expectantly when he didn't follow. Jack sighed and joined her at the door.

"I think that one's yours," Rose said, nodding towards the door across the hall that seemed to have a spotlight shining on it.

"How big is this thing?"

"I don't know. I find new rooms all the time." She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Good night, Jack."

Jack nodded and disappeared behind the door across the hall. Rose shut the door to her own room and padded back to the bed, dropping her dressing gown over the back of her vanity chair on the way.

"Hello," the Doctor greeted her as she climbed under the covers.

"Hello," she returned automatically before laying her head on his chest.

"What happened to it being bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?" he asked, absently stroking his hand up and down her back.

"We make our own luck," Rose replied. It wasn't long before she fell asleep to the comforting sound of his single heartbeat.


	11. Chapter 11

The mid-afternoon sun shone brightly on the Tylers' back garden and pristine, vibrant green lawn, bringing warm temperatures from the lingering effects of global warming caused by Torchwood's dimension hopping. Orderly rows of white chairs spanned either side of a flower petal-lined aisle that led to an archway covered in more white flowers. Roses mostly, the Doctor noted from the smell rather than by looking. Likely Jackie's choice, not Rose-with-a-capital-R's.

He fidgeted slightly as he stood in front of the white-painted archway in his grey morning coat. Jackie Tyler had made the Doctor forgo his usual trainers, but at least he didn't have to wear a tuxedo. He pulled at his dark blue tie for the fifth time in as many minutes, as it somehow felt tighter than his usual ones. Human anxiety, part of his brain deduced whilst another part argued his physiology wasn't human enough for such a reaction.

Little Tony Tyler, five years old and enviably ginger, waved from the front row where he sat with his nanny. The Doctor waved back at the boy before glancing at the rest of the crowd—some were already seated but several were still milling around and chatting. Inconspicuous and well-dressed security guards watched the guests and the perimeter, tasked with keeping the paparazzi and any other uninvited guests out.

Rose had made sure the guest list stayed small, mandating that only people she or the Doctor personally knew were invited. That meant the majority of the guests were associated with Torchwood. Even the president of Great Britain had been denied an invitation, much to Jackie's disappointment. She'd argued that both Rose and the Doctor knew Harriet Jones, but Rose had been adamant that they didn't know _this_ Harriet and glossed over the fact that the Doctor was responsible for the other Harriet getting sacked.

The Doctor's thoughts drifted back to Rose as he watched the guests gather. He hadn't seen her since she'd left the TARDIS to sneak back into the mansion quite early in the morning. He honestly couldn't understand why it was going to take her six hours to get ready.

"Doctor, are you all right?" a gentle voice asked. Toshiko Sato, in a smart sapphire blue dress, stood next to him. Jackie had insisted he have a best man, and the Doctor felt his only real choices were K9, Tosh, or Jack Harkness. Since he knew K9 wouldn't be accepted and didn't fully trust Jack Harkness not to abscond with his bride, he chose Tosh, who had been an invaluable assistant to him in the nearly two years he'd been in this universe. An employee of Torchwood Three in Cardiff, Tosh had been entrusted with the secret care of the fledgling TARDIS.

Of course, Jackie held to the notion that the best man should have actually been male, but when the Doctor firmly told her the options were Tosh or the tin dog, she conceded.

"I feel like I'm on display in a museum," the Doctor complained quietly. "Or possibly a circus...and I'm the monkey."

"You're hardly a monkey, Doctor. Who's that?" Tosh nodded towards a handsome man in a long navy coat waving at them.

The Doctor looked up in time to see the dark-haired man wink at him. "That's Jack Harkness, a fifty-first century Time Agent. Friend of Rose's...and mine, but more Rose."

Tosh looked at him quizzically for a moment. "You're serious."

"Why wouldn't I be serious?"

"He traveled three thousand years to attend your wedding."

The Doctor didn't find the situation incredulous as Tosh did. "Rose would have been terribly disappointed if he hadn't. Besides, with a Vortex Manipulator it's not much of a trip, even if it is a primitive means of time travel."

Back inside the Tyler mansion, Jackie was adjusting her daughter's delicate lace veil for the hundredth time whilst simultaneously observing the crowd outside.

"There's a big blue box in my back garden," Jackie complained again with a sigh. "It's hardly ever a blue box anymore. Why couldn't it have been a nice statue or something?"

"Because it makes the Doctor happy."

Jackie gave her daughter a knowing look. "It's you that makes him happy, Rose. Has been since he was big ears and all."

Rose looked through the glass of the French doors to spy on the Doctor, who was talking to Tosh at the altar. Her eyes roved the crowd, spotting Jack flirting with her fellow Torchwood agent and friend Jake Simmonds. "I wish Mickey were here," she sighed.

"I know, sweetheart. You know he'd be happy for you."

"I think he'd say it's about bloody time," Rose laughed.

Pete Tyler slipped in through the French doors and regarded his daughter swathed in white lace and pearls. "You look beautiful. It's nearly time. Are you ready?"

Rose nodded. A part of her couldn't believe it. She really was about to marry the Doctor. It wasn't an accident or a cover story or a ploy to escape. This was real and deliberate. Two years ago, she wasn't certain she'd ever see him again at all. Never in her wildest dreams would she dare imagine this.

The remaining guests took their seats, and Rose saw Tosh lean in towards the Doctor to say something in his ear, her dark hair obscuring her face from view. He dutifully turned around to face the very serious looking officiant, a grey-haired registrar that happened to be an acquaintance of Pete Tyler's. Rose hadn't asked what her parents had to do to get approval for a garden wedding, thinking maybe it was just another parallel difference. She just knew she couldn't picture the Doctor in a traditional church.

The string quartet holding court between the back of the mansion and the decorative arch began to play more loudly, and the wedding coordinator, a ginger woman in a conservative grey suit, gave them the nod to proceed.

Jackie glanced at her reflection in the French doors one last time, straightening her frothy sky-blue hat atop carefully coiffed blonde hair. Pete held out his arm to Rose, who wrapped her arm around his with a smile before snagging her mother's arm on the other side. The Doctor, trying to include some elements drawn from Gallifreyan tradition, had requested both parents escort the bride. Together, Pete and Jackie pushed the doors open and walked their daughter down the few steps leading to the garden.

The Tylers walked slowly down the aisle as guests stared and smiled and murmured softly. Rose kept her eyes glued on the Doctor's back. She knew, even without being able to sense his emotions at the moment, that he wanted nothing more than to turn around and watch her approach. Just thinking of his impatience made her smile. _Halfway there_ , she thought absently. The entire situation was somehow surreal, like she was dreaming.

And then her vision seemed to shimmer.

No, the Doctor seemed to shimmer. And then he was gone. Rose forced her eyes closed and opened them again. All she could see were the horrified expressions on the faces of Tosh and the registrar as they stared at the spot in which the Doctor had been standing just two seconds earlier.

Without a conscious thought, Rose dropped her blue and white bouquet in the middle of the aisle, grabbed the skirt of her gown in her hands, and sprinted towards the TARDIS. With the snap of her fingers, the doors swung open, leading to a few gasps from wedding guests who could see into the expansive console room. The doors swung shut with a bang once Rose was inside and she slammed her hands on the console.

"What happened? Where is he? Please, you must know!" Rose pleaded. The TARDIS, not capable of actual language, at least with Rose, didn't respond. "K9!" she shouted desperately.

The fifty-first century robot dog rolled out of the hallway. "Mistress," he greeted in a mechanical voice.

"The Doctor just, I dunno, vanished! What happened?"

"Transmat beam detected."

"Who? To where?" Rose was distraught enough not to notice pounding and shouting coming from the other side of the TARDIS doors.

"I have the coordinates."

Rose looked helplessly at the array of knobs, buttons, and switches on the console. She knew what fewer than half of them actually did, and beyond a special shortcut sequence the Doctor had shown her that would return her to early twenty-first century London in an emergency, Rose couldn't actually fly the TARDIS herself. She closed her eyes to think, but all she could see was a blinding golden light behind her eyelids. It was a vision from the TARDIS, showing the essence of the Time Vortex at her heart.

"I can't," Rose cried. "You know what will happen. He'll try to take the Vortex to save me, and it will kill him. Permanently. I can't do that!"

"You can, Rose. You have to."

At the sound of that familiar voice, Rose was convinced she'd gone completely mad. It was only reinforced when she turned to see him standing beside the console and looking exactly like she remembered, from the close-cropped dark hair to the black jumper he'd been wearing when he regenerated. Blue eyes bored into her, but something about those eyes was off—she just couldn't quite tell what.

"Doctor?" she choked out, somewhere between a whisper and a sob. She had the strongest urge to bury her face against that jumper and see if it was as soft as she remembered.

"Afraid not. I thought it might be easier to communicate if I assumed a familiar form," the image of her first Doctor replied with the northern accent she hadn't heard in years.

"Who are you?"

"Come on, Rose, how many people in this universe have ever seen this version of the Doctor?" He tugged at the lapels of his black leather coat and gave her that familiar daft grin that made her heart ache.

"I don't have time for this," Rose cried in frustration. "The Doctor's disappeared, and I have to find him!"

The vision or hallucination or whatever it was of her first Doctor looked at her sadly. "I want to find him as much as you do. But you have to look into my heart to do it."

"Your heart?" Rose asked. Finally the penny dropped. "You're the TARDIS!" The image of the Doctor nodded. "But he said it would kill me. Not that I wouldn't die to save to save the Doctor, you know that, but I don't want him to die just to save me."

"It won't kill you. You took too much the first time. Oh, it still would have been enough to kill you," he said blithely, "but a little less wouldn't have caused the Doctor to regenerate. You caught me by surprise before, but I won't let you take too much this time. You have to trust me, Rose."

Rose looked at the familiar face she had once loved and for a moment imagined it really was him. Of course she trusted him; she always had.

"Okay." Rose took two steps back from the console to the approximate spot she'd remembered standing when it finally opened for her years ago. The panel shifted only a few inches, and a brilliant gold mist began to waft out of the opening, reaching for Rose. An impossible wind whipped her hair, pulling it from its elaborate updo and carrying away her veil to rest against one of the coral struts. She gave the image of her first Doctor one last glance, trying to recommit his face to memory as he faded away.

Rose's golden brown eyes began to glow with an unnatural light as the time rotor began to move up and down accompanied by the engines' tell-tale wheezing. In just moments that seemed to take a lifetime to Rose, the TARDIS materialised with a slight shudder. Unlike the first time she'd absorbed the Time Vortex, Rose still felt fully aware of herself and her surroundings.

"K9, where are we?"

"A ship orbiting the far side of Earth's moon."

"But whose ship?"

The console monitor flared to life, showing the view outside the TARDIS doors. A growling metallic voice could be heard shouting as if it were actually inside the room. It was a sound Rose recognised immediately and had hoped she would never hear again.

"Alert!" the screeching electronic voice exclaimed. "TARDIS detected. Occupants will be exterminated!"


	12. Chapter 12

"Daleks," Rose breathed in shock. "How can there be Daleks? The Doctor destroyed them all. That's why he was sent here." She ran to the monitor to confirm her nightmare was real. She counted at least six bronze Daleks just outside the TARDIS doors. Their blue glowing eyestalks and whisk-like lasers were all aimed at the TARDIS.

"K9, do we have...oh, what was it called?" Rose's brain was slightly scrambled from panic. "Extrapolator shielding?"

"Negative, mistress."

Rose's heart sank. She had little with which to fight the Daleks and no way to keep them out of the TARDIS. "If we survive this, put that on the Doctor's to-do list," she told the robot dog.

"Affirmative," he chirped.

"I need you to try to contact Torchwood. Or Jack Harkness. Tell them where we are." She took a deep breath and strode down the ramp to open the door and face the Doctor's worst enemy. Stepping out of the TARDIS, she let the door swing closed behind her, shielding K9 from view. She could only hope he could find a way to bring help.

"The female is human," one of the Daleks screeched, antenna-like lights blinking in time with its speech. "Only Time Lords can pilot a TARDIS. Explain!"

Rose somehow managed to shrug nonchalantly despite her inner terror. "I guess I'm just special."

"Humans are inferior beings," another Dalek proclaimed. "You will be exterminated."

"Yeah, well if I'm so inferior, how is it that I destroyed your crazy emperor? I obliterated the Dalek fleet at Satellite Five."

The Daleks seemed taken aback, as much as metal-encased aliens could be. "Identify yourself."

"Hello, I'm Rose Tyler," she said with a wave, doing her best impression of the Doctor. "But you might remember me as the Bad Wolf." The Daleks' eye pieces began waving around, which Rose took as a sign of confusion. "What I wanna know is why you kidnapped my fiancé, the man who destroyed your entire race. Of course, since you're here at all, I'm guessing you weren't there at the Medusa Cascade. Did you lot run away and hide?"

"Daleks do not run away," another one grated angrily, or so Rose thought. They always sounded like they were angry.

"Then how are you here?"

"The Void portal opened by inferior Cybermen."

Rose suddenly understood. "The two-way breach. When Torchwood allowed the Cybermen through to my world, the Daleks came, too. But not all of you. You didn't come on the Void ship, so you must've traced the Cybermen back to this world to what, hide out for five years?"

"We came through the Void without protection. A new ship had to be built. We will bring the Genesis Ark to this universe and create a new Dalek empire."

Though she didn't comment on it, it didn't escape Rose's notice that it seemed they had just the one ship. It was the best piece of news she'd gotten since the Doctor disappeared. As dangerous as even a single Dalek was, she was grateful they weren't facing an entire armada.

"Put her with the other time traveler," the first Dalek ordered. "We will extract the artron energy."

The Dalek nearest Rose began waving its laser at her and Rose put her hands up. "You will follow," it ordered. She dutifully trailed the Dalek through the narrow corridor of the ship—it seemed much smaller than the other Dalek ships she had seen during her travels with the Doctor. The interior was mismatched, like the parts had been scavenged from a multitude of other ships.

Eventually the Dalek led her to a large dark door that slid open. "Inside," it screeched. She stepped in and watched the door slide shut in front of her face.

"Rose?"

She turned and launched herself at the Doctor, her real, part-human Doctor, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "I was so worried."

The Doctor pulled back to see her face, almost disbelieving she was actually there. "How did you get here? Were you caught in the transmat?"

Rose shook her head. "I came in the TARDIS."

"But how?" He looked into her eyes and noticed gold swirling amidst the brown. "No," he breathed, stepping back and tangling his fingers in his already mussed hair. "No, no, no. Rose, how could you? It will kill you and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"I had to, and I feel okay, I swear. She only gave me a small fraction of the Time Vortex this time. But Doctor, we have to get out of here."

He shushed her with a finger on her lips. "The Daleks don't know who I am. They think I'm just a time-travelling human. Must be the single heart that fooled them."

"They said something about artron energy. That's the stuff from travelling in time, right?"

"Background radiation. Harmless mostly," the Doctor commented absently as he thought. "If the Daleks are trying to scavenge artron energy, that means they're desperate for power. This ship likely isn't capable of time travel."

"That's good, right?"

"It limits just how much damage they're capable of." He sighed. "Every time I think they're gone for good, they keep coming back."

"They came through the Void. They said something about bringing the Genesis Ark here. I think they want to reopen the breach."

The Doctor shook his head. "They can't—the breach is sealed. Unless…" he trailed off and rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.

"Unless what?"

"Unless they go back to before we sealed it."

Rose frowned for a moment as she thought it through. "You think the Daleks were the ones manipulating this universe's Torchwood?"

"I do." The Doctor looked at Rose again, and a funny little half smile crossed his face. "You're in your wedding dress," he said as if he'd just noticed.

She looked down at her dress, nearly having forgotten about it herself with all the chaos. Other than a little dirt on the hem, it didn't seem any worse for wear. "I was supposed to be getting married today," she said wistfully.

The Doctor's expression was pained. "I did tell you I was rubbish at weddings, right?"

Rose gave a short laugh. "Of all the things I thought could go wrong today, getting abducted by Daleks didn't even make the list. So how do we get out of here?"

"The door is deadlock sealed. I can't open it." He pulled his sonic screwdriver from inside his grey coat. "This might as well be useless at the moment."

"Well, the Daleks have only locked us up—together, at that. They must not think we're much of a threat. We've come out of similar scrapes all right before."

The Doctor looked unusually pessimistic. "Last time Donna and I broke you out."

"There must be something we can do. Something you can build." She looked around their cell, but the room was completely bare.

"Do you have your mobile?"

Rose patted the close-fitting skirt of her gown. "No pockets. All I have is my TARDIS key." That elicited a brief smile from the Doctor.

"May I?"

Rose pulled out the key from under her dress and slipped the silver chain over her head. The Doctor adjusted the setting on the sonic before applying it to the key, which he then handed back to Rose.

"What did you do?"

"Perception filter. If we find a way out of here, it might get you back to the TARDIS unnoticed."

Rose frowned. "You don't sound too confident."

He brushed a strand of Rose's long, windblown hair away from her face. "Every time we've come up against the Daleks, one or both of us have nearly died."

"But we're still here, together," she said, forcing just a little more optimism than she felt.

"Rose, will you do something for me?"

Her eyebrows drew together with concern. "Of course. What?"

"Marry me," he said simply, dark eyes watching her intensely.

"That is what we were about to do, in case you've forgotten. Did you get bumped on the head?" She skimmed her fingers through his hair. "I bet mum's going mad right now wondering where we are."

But the Doctor didn't smile or make a disparaging remark about her mum like she expected.

"I mean right now, right here. In case...well, just in case we don't make it back this time."

Rose started to contradict him but stopped at his serious expression. "All right."

"I know it's not what you wanted, and I'm sorry."

Rose grabbed his hands in hers and looked up into his anxious face. "Don't be daft. All I've ever wanted was you. This party, the fancy clothes...yeah, it's fun, and mum was over the moon about it, but it's not important."

The Doctor brightened and started undoing his tie, pulling it free from around his neck. "This is a bit long, but it'll do." He handed one end to Rose and held on to the other hand. "Wrap it around your hand like this until we meet in the middle."

Rose did as instructed, wrapping the sapphire blue silk around her right hand until she met the Doctor's left. "What now?"

"Normally there's a bit about families consenting to the union, but in light of our present circumstances, we'll have to skip that. This is the very, very short version. Rose Marion Tyler, I'm going to tell you something few people in any universe know, and it's not something you can ever share."

Rose looked at him questioningly but nodded. He reached out his right hand towards her temple, and she felt the warm presence of his mind meet hers. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and saw brilliant, swirling shapes that coalesced into writing, but it wasn't a language Rose recognised.

" _Old High Gallifreyan_ ," she heard the Doctor's voice in her head. Suddenly, the words became clear as if they were any other language being translated by the TARDIS.

"That's your name. Your actual given name," Rose said aloud as she silently tried to sound out the foreign words. She felt the Doctor withdraw from her mind, but something felt different, like the tiniest bit of his consciousness remained. She opened her eyes. "How come you've never told me?" she asked softly.

"I couldn't. Until now." He tugged gently on their bound hands to pull her closer and wrapped his free arm around Rose's back. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. Rose responded, going up on her toes in her satin flats to get closer to him. She ran her unbound left hand up his back and through his hair. Through their bond, she could feel a glowing happiness cut through some of the Doctor's worry. The emotion wrapped around her like a warm embrace as she relaxed into him.

"You guys are so sweet. You know, most people tend to notice when they're being rescued," an American-accented voice drawled.

Rose and the Doctor broke apart just enough to turn their heads towards the interrupting voice, standing practically cheek to cheek. Jack Harkness stood framed in the now open doorway with a massive laser rifle slung across his torso.

"That perception filter's giving me one hell of a headache," Jack added, pointing to his temple.

"Sorry!" Rose reached for her TARDIS key, but the Doctor stilled her hand.

"No, leave it." Jack watched with interest as the Doctor unwound his tie from Rose's hand and shoved the whole thing in his pocket. "So what's going on here, anyway? You don't usually see both the bride and the groom disappear during the ceremony."

"Daleks," the Doctor said tersely.

"Is that what those tin cans are?"

"The Daleks are among the worst enemies I've ever faced, and yet I seem to face them over and over again. A few of them always escape somehow. But they aren't supposed to be in this universe at all. That's why you don't recognise them."

Rose looked up at the Doctor. "They've been here just as long as I have."

"And in all that time, they haven't gotten far. That's good. That means they're weak, disorganised."

Jack raised his wrist with his vortex manipulator. "I can't jump all three of us back, but we can find the TARDIS and get the hell out of here."

"No," Rose said. She felt the Doctor squeeze her hand. "No, I've seen what the Daleks can do, and we can't just let them stay here. Just one can kill hundreds of people. An entire ship could destroy the Earth."

"So how do we stop them?"

"First, we need to get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said. He poked his head out into the mercifully clear hallway and then gestured for Rose to lead. Jack kept his laser rifle at the ready. The corridor opened up into a large round room with the TARDIS at the centre, numerous thick cables extending in multiple directions. The blue box was guarded by four Daleks.

The Doctor pulled both Rose and Jack into a small alcove. "You're going to have to make a run for it. I can distract them–"

"Or I can shoot them," Jack countered.

The Doctor shook his head. "You might be able to get one or two of them, but not all four. They'd kill you as soon as look at you."

Rose grabbed the Doctor's arm. "What's to stop them from killing you?"

"Very little, unfortunately. I'm counting on Dalek hubris here. Hubris," the Doctor repeated, savouring the word. "You know, for raging genocidal...things, they do prattle on."

Rose's only reply was a raised eyebrow. Even that was unnecessary, as the Doctor was able to feel exactly what Rose was thinking.

"Now, these Daleks are scavenging for energy, specifically artron energy. They were desperate enough to bring me here for what little clings to me from travelling through the Time Vortex. But they aren't interested in me or Rose anymore. Why? Because they now have enough artron energy at their disposal to bring this ship to full power."

Rose looked horrified. "You mean the TARDIS."

"It's all right," the Doctor said reassuringly. "You couldn't have known. Besides, we're going to defeat the Daleks by giving them what they want."

"I don't follow," Jack told him.

"Unlike the Daleks, the TARDIS was grown in this universe. She's designed to run on the power from this universe's Vortex." When Jack still looked perplexed, the Doctor turned to Rose. "Remember the first time we came to this universe with the old TARDIS and she shut down?"

"Diesel in a petrol engine," Rose replied, remembering the Doctor's analogy.

"Precisely. The old TARDIS needed energy from our home universe, but the new one, well she's brilliant. Even though she was grown from the old TARDIS, she grew up here, on this universe's energy. But the Daleks are from our original universe. They're carefully siphoning energy and converting it so they can use it." He gestured to the large black cables snaking out of the TARDIS.

"Then how do we stop it?" Jack asked.

"You aren't going to stop it. Just the opposite, in fact. You're going to turn their careful trickle of energy into a firehose. It should overload their systems, causing everything to shut down. Or possibly explode."

"What do we do?" Rose asked.

"Prepare the TARDIS for flight but don't set any coordinates. She'll start to draw energy from the Vortex. If that isn't enough, give the helmic regulator a good whack but remember to leave the parking brake on. The TARDIS needs to stay here."

"Can you do all that?" Jack said to Rose.

Rose looked concerned and turned to the Doctor with pleading eyes. "Come with us. I only know what half of the controls are for. I can't fly her."

He gave her a sad smile. "You got here. Bad Wolf is connected to the TARDIS and the Vortex. You can probably get her to start drawing power without pressing a single button."

"But Doctor–"

He silenced her with a finger pressed against her lips. "And if that doesn't work, I'll show you what to do."

He took a step back so he was no longer touching Rose. " _Like this_ ," she heard, even though his mouth hadn't moved. She saw a series of images of TARDIS controls, a sequence of instructions to follow. Rose wanted to know how this was possible—she'd always had to be in physical contact with the Doctor to communicate. Before she could even voice the thought, she heard his answer. " _Perk of being married to a Time Lord."_

"We're gonna talk about this later," Rose demanded in a whisper. She could see Jack trying to smother a laugh.

The Doctor pulled out his own TARDIS key and applied the sonic screwdriver to it before handing it to Jack. "Perception filter. Should help you get past the Daleks once I distract them."

"Thanks." Jack dropped the chain around his neck. "Good luck, Doc."

The Doctor turned back to Rose and tangled a hand in her messy blonde hair. " _I love you_ ," he told her as he kissed her hard. Rose wrapped both of her arms around him and clung desperately, not wanting the kiss to end because it would mean he was leaving to face his enemy.

"Come back to me," she whispered when they finally broke apart, not trusting a telepathic message to reach him.

The Doctor didn't respond, unwilling to make a promise he wasn't sure he could keep. He just stepped back, staring at her as if he was trying to memorise everything about her, and then turned away to stride confidently into the room filled with Daleks.


	13. Chapter 13

The Doctor strolled into the circular room that housed the TARDIS with his hands shoved in his trouser pockets, looking utterly unconcerned that four Daleks currently surrounded his beloved ship.

"Alert!" the one nearest to him screeched. "The human time-traveller has escaped." Two of the four Daleks turned from their guard posts to point their weapons at him.

"Human? That's a bit presumptuous, don't you think? I realised I didn't properly introduce myself before. That was rude of me, though I do seem to have a tendency for rudeness." He rocked back on his heels and gave them a wide grin before continuing. "Hello, I'm the Doctor."

His words had the intended effect, drawing out the remaining two Daleks and causing a state of mild panic as evidenced by their constant movement and waving appendages.

"Impossible!" the third one from the left grated in its electronic voice. All four Daleks were bronze, so it was difficult to tell them apart. "There are no Time Lords in this parallel universe."

"Well, there's me, last of the Time Lords and all. Possibly first of the Time Lords in this universe. Hello," the Doctor chirped again with a little wave of his fingers.

"Singular cardiovascular system detected," another Dalek shouted (they were always shouting). "You are not a Time Lord."

"Now who's being rude? There was a little accident with my last regeneration. One of you lot shot me." It was entirely true but somehow not. "Of course, not long after that, I destroyed every last Dalek in my home universe," he said coldly. "Millions of them. So how do you think that's gonna work out for you?"

* * *

Back in the hallway, Rose and Jack saw their chance to run. The Daleks were agitated now, all of their attention focused on the Doctor. The TARDIS doors were unguarded. Rose looked at Jack and nodded. Amidst shouts of "Lies!" from the Daleks, they bolted for the TARDIS at top speed. With a snap of Rose's fingers, the TARDIS doors opened, shutting quickly and silently behind them.

"I'm so happy to see you," Rose said as she laid a hand on the console. She felt the time ship send her a warm wave of welcome. "We need to start the flight initialisation sequence, but we can't leave," Rose instructed the ship.

"Are you talking to your ship's computer?" Jack asked over her shoulder.

"Huh? No, I'm talking to the TARDIS herself. I told you she's alive."

Jack's eyes widened, but he didn't comment.

"Mistress," a high-pitched mechanical voice greeted. "You have returned." K9 rolled into the console room, and Rose crouched down next to him.

"We need the TARDIS to pull as much artron energy as possible to help the Doctor. Can you help?"

"Affirmative." The robot dog moved closer and extended a probe from his nose to a port in the side of the console. "Increasing TARDIS engines to maximum power."

The blue-green glowing column of the Time Rotor began to move up and down accompanied by the familiar wheezing sound. Rose started to move around the console in a fair imitation of the Doctor's own piloting dance, turning dials and hitting buttons as she went. The Time Rotor began to churn faster, and Rose could only hope it was enough.

She ran to the monitor, which currently showed what was just beyond the TARDIS doors. "I need to see the Doctor," Rose begged. The view changed to the other side of the ship, showing the Doctor surrounded by four Daleks who were starting to close in on him.

"Jack!" Rose shouted. "It's time to fetch the Doctor."

* * *

Outside the blue police box, the distinctive sound of the TARDIS' engines caught the attention of the Daleks. "Alert! Artron energy level rising," one Dalek announced.

"The Doctor will stop the TARDIS," another ordered.

The man in question folded his arms across his chest. "Now why would I do that?"

"We will exterminate you."

"Either you want me to stop the TARDIS or you want me dead. You can't have it both ways." Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Jack Harkness with his oversized laser rifle in hand edging around the corner of the TARDIS.

A klaxon sounded, adding to the chaos in the room. "Artron power overloading. Disconnect the TAR–" The Dalek exploded in a shower of sparks when a blast from Jack's rifle struck it. The Doctor sprinted for the TARDIS doors whilst Jack held the Daleks at bay. The lights inside the Dalek ship began to dim and surge as their systems couldn't keep up with the rapid influx of artron energy.

As the Doctor passed Jack, he heard one of the Dalek lasers fire followed by a thump. Turning on the spot, he found Jack slumped on the ground.

Rose leaned out of the TARDIS doors and gasped when she saw Jack on the ground. She started to run out when the Doctor stopped her. "Get back inside!"

The Doctor grabbed Jack under his arms and dragged him the last few feet to the TARDIS doors and partially up the ramp. He let go and ran to the console as Rose knelt beside Jack.

"Time to go!" the Doctor shouted as he began setting coordinates to put them safely in the Time Vortex.

"Jack!" Rose patted her fallen friend's face and felt his neck for a pulse. The Doctor didn't look at her as he worked. He hadn't heard the Time Agent's heart beating when he pulled him into the TARDIS but couldn't bear to leave him behind with the Daleks. Again.

"Please don't die," Rose pleaded. The Doctor yanked the lever to complete the dematerialisation sequence before finally directing his attention to Rose. Every part of her not covered by her floor-length wedding gown was glowing with golden light.

"Rose, no!" He lunged towards her but stopped when something that looked very much like regeneration energy began to flow from Rose to Jack. The light surrounding Rose dimmed as Jack's pallor lessened. Jack took a great gasping breath and opened his eyes. They glowed briefly gold before returning to their normal blue.

The Doctor knelt beside Rose and stared at Jack, waiting for the sense of wrongness that surrounded their original universe's Jack Harkness to hit him. Jack slowly sat up and threw his arms around Rose. The Doctor continued to stare, but the feeling of unease didn't come.

"I thought I was a dead man," Jack marvelled.

"You were," the Doctor said bluntly.

"What do you mean?"

"The Dalek shot you. You died. No heartbeat, no breathing." He glanced at Rose who was being unusually silent. "Rose, or perhaps more accurately Bad Wolf, saved you."

Rose looked at him with wide, worrying eyes. "Did I...did I do it again? Did I make him immortal?"

"Immortal?" Jack choked out, bringing a hand to his forehead.

The Doctor shook his head and looked into Rose's eyes like he was examining her. "I don't think so. Without the full power of the Time Vortex, it seems you only revived him. You transferred the small amount of the Vortex in you to him." He looked back at the TARDIS console. "She gave you just enough power to save him. It's like she knew...well, she's a TARDIS, she did know."

"You're telling me I was dead," Jack said with disbelief.

"Rose, I'm sorry to tell you this, but I think Jack has brain damage." Rose gasped, and the Doctor continued with a wink. "He's a bit thick now."

Rose smirked. "I seem to recall you laid up in bed for an entire day when you regenerated." She suddenly hopped up and ran for the monitor on the console. "The Daleks, are they still out there?"

"They're gone...for now," the Doctor said quietly. "Their ship is destroyed, but it's likely the Daleks themselves survived. They seem to be quite good at surviving."

Rose wrapped her arm around the Doctor's and leaned against him. "As are we."


	14. Chapter 14

Jackie Tyler couldn't believe her eyes. This was a nightmare—the Doctor disappearing in front of the entire crowd followed by Rose running off in the TARDIS and then their friend Jack blinking out of existence. She longed for the days of normal human problems.

The wedding coordinator, bless, was unflappable. She strode in her practical pumps down the aisle to stand in front of the registrar and address the shocked and bewildered guests. "Everyone please remain seated. We'll resume in just a little while."

"What is she talking about?" Jackie whispered to her husband. "Does she know something?"

Pete only shook his head and shrugged. When the coordinator came back, Jackie dug her artificial nails into the woman's bland suit jacket. "What do you know? Where is my daughter?"

The coordinator pulled free of Jackie's grasp. "People don't just disappear. Not like that. They have to come back."

"Yeah, try saying that when your daughter disappears for twelve months without so much as a phone call," Jackie challenged.

Pete started to edge closer to his wife, not certain how far she was from slapping the other woman. But before the fight could escalate, he caught the faint wheezing sound of the TARDIS. Jackie noticed it just seconds later, her head whipping to the ship's former location near the garden wall. Soon all of the guests were staring as a blue police box faded in and out of existence before fully materialising.

The doors opened to reveal the Doctor, looking no worse for wear except that he was no longer wearing his tie. He bounded across the lawn to resume his place in front of the archway, but this time he remained facing the TARDIS. He was uncharacteristically silent as he waited with his eyes glued to the doors of his ship. Jackie started to approach him when Rose appeared at the bottom of the TARDIS ramp on Jack's arm. Her veil was missing, and her hair was down around her shoulders and brushed into soft waves.

Jack escorted Rose around the back of row of chairs to reach the aisle. Jackie quickly scooped up the discarded bouquet, the flowers now slightly bruised, and hurried towards her daughter as fast as her high heels allowed. Jack nodded to the Tylers and kissed Rose lightly on the cheek before finding a vacant seat near the front of the crowd.

Jackie caught sight of the wedding coordinator wearing a smug expression as she instructed the string quartet to resume playing. "What happened? Where did you go?" Jackie hissed to her daughter.

"I'll tell you later, mum."

The ceremony was short, even shorter than it was meant to be, Jackie realised. They'd completely skipped over the handfasting bit that was supposedly adapted from some sort of Gallifreyan tradition. Sometimes she wondered if the Doctor was just making things up, but he'd been rather insistent about this one. She added it to the growing list of questions to ask Rose later. But brief or not, the ceremony ended with a long kiss that elicited a triumphant whoop from one of the guests.

Jackie pulled a tissue from her tiny beaded clutch and dabbed carefully at the corners of her eyes when the registrar introduced the beaming couple as Doctor and Mrs Tyler. They walked up the aisle hand in hand, just like any other day.

* * *

Hours later, after the pictures and dinner and mercifully short speeches, Rose was exhausted. She was taking a short respite from the chaos, glad to be off her feet even though she'd worn practical flats. Her half-eaten slice of cake looked terribly unappetizing now. She knew weddings could be tiring under normal circumstances, but normal brides didn't have to face potentially murderous aliens in addition to all the standard wedding fuss. Well, she reflected, apparently Donna had, according to the story the Doctor had told her. Everything said and done, her wedding had gone significantly better than Donna's.

The Doctor, as usual, seemed to have boundless energy, talking to guests and ensuring he'd tried every single type of food available. But he never strayed far from Rose's side, and for that, she was grateful. She caught sight of Jack chatting up Jake again on the far side of the enormous, heated tent. She almost couldn't see them in the soft glow of the fairy lights strung across the ceiling. Briefly she wondered if Jake needed rescuing when a thought struck her.

" _We forgot about Jack!_ " She sent the urgent mental message to the Doctor, who was currently in the middle of a technology discussion with her father.

To his credit, the Doctor gave absolutely no sign that he was participating in two conversations at once. " _He's right over there, flirting as usual_."

" _I mean the memory storage thing. Did you ever give him back his memories?_ " This time the Doctor turned away from Pete, and she could tell he had forgotten in all the chaos.

"Sorry," the Doctor said aloud to Pete. "I've just remembered there's someone Rose and I need to talk to. If you'll excuse us." He helped Rose up from her chair, and they wove their way quickly between the large round tables to reach the other end of the tent.

"Sorry, Jake, can we steal him away for a mo?" Rose asked. Jake kept his expression neutral as he nodded and stepped away, but Rose thought she saw the barest hint of relief. Once Jake was out of earshot with another of their Torchwood co-workers, the Doctor reached far down into the pocket of his trousers to remove the large, gleaming silver headphones.

"What's that?" Jack asked.

"We couldn't change your past, but we can at least give you some of your memories back." Jack's eyes went wide as he grabbed the headphones from the Doctor and began to place them on his head. "Fair warning," the Doctor continued. "This might hurt a bit. Possibly more than a bit."

Jack didn't hesitate to place the device on his head, hands clamping it in place. The device emitted a faint hum, and Jack gritted his teeth, his face pinched with obvious discomfort. Despite the warning, Rose was beginning to worry and started to reach for the Doctor's hand when Jack's face relaxed and his eyes opened.

"I remember," he breathed. "The Cybermen and Torchwood and...oh, God, the Time Agency caused that massacre."

"Not just the Time Agency," the Doctor retorted with a hint of anger. "The Daleks were manipulating Torchwood. Trying to let the Void Ship into this universe where they thought no one could stop them."

"But we did," Rose said, giving the Doctor's hand a squeeze and looking down at it after encountering the unfamiliar feeling of hard metal against her fingers. The Doctor noticed, too, and gave her a broad grin that held a hint of mischief.

"I don't know how to thank you," Jack exclaimed, hugging Rose with enthusiasm and picking her up off the ground. The Doctor gave an exasperated sigh but noticed that niggle of irrational jealousy he usually felt whenever Jack got too close to Rose didn't appear. He didn't have time to contemplate that development as Jack yanked him into an embrace, slapping him heartily on the shoulder.

"And now I'll leave you two lovebirds to it," he said with a salacious wink before making his way over to the busy dance floor.

"That sounds like a fantastic idea," the Doctor commented as he wrapped an arm around Rose's waist.

"What, dancing?"

"No, leaving."

She looked up at her husband—that was going to take some getting used to. "This is our wedding reception. We can't just leave. That'd be rude, even for you."

"You seem to keep forgetting that we have the most brilliant time machine in the universe. I think we ought to take a well-deserved honeymoon, and once we've tired of that, we can pop back and finish out the reception. All that preparation put into this single day...why not spread it out a bit?"

Rose pondered that for a moment. They could come back and enjoy their reception when she wasn't dead tired. It was almost too good to be true—and it might be, depending on the accuracy of his driving. "All right, Doctor John Tyler," she smirked, using his new legal name. "Run for your life."

He flashed her a dazzling smile as he found a gap in the heavy vinyl wall of the tent and held it open for her. Hand-in-hand, they dashed across the lawn to the TARDIS in the waning light of the longest day of the year. The light atop the blue police box glowed brightly like a beacon.

The Doctor, trying to squeeze in one more human tradition, swept Rose up in his arms. She gave a brief squeal but quickly wrapped her arms around him. With a snap of his fingers, the TARDIS doors swung inwards, and he carried his bride over the threshold and up the ramp into the console room. Something seemed different. He set Rose gently on her feet and took in the console room. Glittering flower garlands were strung between the coral struts, adding a riot of colour to the usual pinkish gold of the room.

"She decorated," Rose laughed with glee as her eyes roamed the domed ceiling. She pressed a hand to the console. "Thank you."

"And now my dearest, darlingest wife...the honeymoon," the Doctor announced dramatically as he twirled her around. "Where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards."

Rose gave him a broad tongue-in-teeth smile. "Definitely forwards."


End file.
